Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys with Jim Lauderdale
A national treasure! Ralph Stanley’s voice is not of this century. Nor of the last one, for that matter. Its stark emotional urgency is rooted in a darker time, when pain was the common coin of life and the world offered sinful humanity no hope of refuge. Preserved in the cultural amber of remote Appalachia, this terse, forlorn sound is the bedrock of Stanley’s inimitable style. Now 82 years young, Stanley has been performing professionally since he and his older brother, Carter, formed a band in their native southwestern Virginia in 1946. Between that date and 1966, when Carter died, the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys became one of the most celebrated bluegrass groups in the world, rivaling in popularity such titans as Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs. After Carter’s death, Stanley shifted the band’s musical emphasis from hard-driving bluegrass to an older, sadder, less adorned mountain style. As a bandleader, he nourished such young and promising talents as Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Larry Sparks and Charlie Sizemore, all of whom eventually graduated to distinguished solo careers.
Ralph Stanley still lives near the spot where he was born in a mountainous, tucked-away corner near the rugged Virginia-Tennessee border. It remains his cherished retreat from the rigors of the road and the 150 plus shows he continues to do each year.
Opener Jim Lauderdale is no stranger to Ralph Stanley. In fact, the two have collaborated on a pair of albums, I Feel Like Singing Today, and the Grammy winning Lost in the Lonesome Pines. Not content to stop there, Lauderdale won the 2008 Grammy for Bluegrass Album of the Year with his release The Bluegrass Diaries.
Tickets are on sale now from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.
JIm Lauderdale is a Nashville showman in the grand tradition. He's also one of the city's finest songwriters, as the Dixie Chicks, Patty Loveless, Mark Chestnut, Vince Gill and George Strait will be glad to attest. Beyond Music Row, Lauderdale is well known...
