Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys

Now 81 years old, 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.
While he has long been revered by enthusiasts of
folk, bluegrass and country music, Stanley has lately
been commanding the kind of honors due a musical original. In 2003, he shared with his friend
Jim Lauderdale a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. The year before that, he won Grammys
for Best Country Male Vocalist Performance (beating out Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Tim
McGraw, Lyle Lovett and Ryan Adams) and Album of the Year (for his part in the O Brother,
Where Art Thou? collection). In 2001, he was the subject of an admiring profile in the New
Yorker, written by novelist David Gates, who traveled with Stanley for months gathering
material. He is the central figure in the D. A. Pennebaker/Chris Hegedus 2000 documentary,
Down From The Mountain.

His March appearance at the Renaissance marks this legends first visit to Mansfield.

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