Dr. Ralph Stanley
Stanley, a banjo player and vocalist, was elected a fellow in the humanities and arts category this year, along with actor and director Al Pacino, novelists John Irving and Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, among others.
Among the last living founders of bluegrass music, Stanley has been hailed as “a bluegrass deity” by Vanity Fair and “a cultural treasure” by the Los Angeles Times. He has performed around the world for 68 years and has recorded dozens of albums. Many of the songs that he has written and recorded have become bluegrass standards, while Stanley has inspired other notable artists across the musical spectrum such as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Vince Gill and Dwight Yoakam.
In 1946, Stanley partnered with his older brother Carter, a singer-songwriter, to form the Stanley Brothers. Over the course of 20 years performing, recording and appearing on television together and with their band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, the Stanley Brothers became one of the most popular brother acts in country music history. They were known for such songs as “Angel Band” and “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Tragically, Carter Stanley died in 1966, at age 41.
Although distraught over the loss of his brother, Stanley carried on in music. Accompanied by a re-formed Clinch Mountain Boys that, over the years, included such country and bluegrass notables as Ricky Skaggs, Larry Sparks and the late Keith Whitley, Stanley became an iconic figure in bluegrass music and a three-time Grammy Award-winner.
However, he did not receive his first Grammy Award until 2002. Stanley’s haunting rendition of the dirge ‘O’ Death,” a plaintive plea against dying that was featured in the popular 2000 movie “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” and also appears on its seven million-selling soundtrack, secured him the award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.
Over the years, Stanley, who grew up in and still lives in and derives inspiration from the rural mountainous region of southwestern Virginia, has received a number of other accolades and honors. He performed at the inaugurations of two U.S. Presidents (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) and received a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship and National Medal of the Arts from President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush, respectively. The Library of Congress bestowed on Stanley its Living Legend award in 2006, while Virginia’s General Assembly named him an Outstanding Virginian in 2008. He’s also been inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry and has been a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Folk Alliance International. Earlier this year, Stanley was awarded an honorary doctor of music degree from Yale University. Lincoln Memorial University had previously conferred one on him.
Stanley’s autobiography, entitled Man of Constant Sorrow: The Life and Times of a Music Legend and written with Eddie Dean, was published in 2009. Stanley continues to perform in concert, although now well into his 80s.
Rolling Stone has referred to him as “a master performer without an expiration dates,” and noted that “Ralph Stanley continues to make American mountain music, playing the bluest grass with the baddest ass.”
Although Stanley had billed his current concert tour, which extends through this December, as his last, he has since opted not to retire this year. “God has had his hand in my career for the past 68 years. It’s up to him wen I quit,” reads a message posted on Stanley’s website. “I have no plans of slowing down. I love my fans, and I love performing.”
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