Man Of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times by Ralph Stanley (English) Paperback B

Description: Man Of Constant Sorrow by Ralph Stanley, Eddie Dean A giant of American music pays tribute to the vanishing Appalachian culture that gave him his voice. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A legend looks back on his six decades in music.Ralph Stanley was born in 1927 in a corner of Virginia known as Big Spraddle Creek, a place where music echoed from the ridge tops, was belted out by workers in the fields, and resonated in the one-room country church where Ralph first found his voice. For his eleventh birthday, Ralph was given five dollars, and had to chose between buying a sow or a banjo. He chose the banjo, which his mother taught him to play in the clawhammer style. In 1946, he combined his banjo with his brother Carters guitar, and the two blended their voices into one as the Stanley Brothers. For twenty years the Stanleys chased the dream through good times and hard times, until the hard times caught up to Carter and he succumbed to liver disease at age 41. In the four decades since his brothers passing, Ralph has brought his music from the hills and hollows of southwest Virginia to the wide world.Now in his eighties and still touring, Ralph has at last grown into his voice and is ready to tell his story. In Man of Constant Sorrow, Ralph looks back on his career in what most call bluegrass but what he prefers to call "old time mountain music." He recounts the creation of hundreds of classic tracks, including "White Dove," "Rank Stranger," and his signature song, "Man of Constant Sorrow." He tells tales from a life spent on road with his band the Clinch Mountain Boys, explains his distinctive "Stanley style" of banjo-playing, crosses paths with everyone from Bill Monroe to Bob Dylan, and reflects on his late-career resurgence sparked by an unlikely Grammy win in 2002 for his song "O Death." He also raises a dirge for Appalachia, his mountain home that is quickly disappearing.Harmonized with equal measures of tragedy and triumph, Man of Constant Sorrow is the stirring testament of a giant of American music. Author Biography Ralph Stanley was a Grammy Award-winning American bluegrass artist, and an inductee into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor and the Grand Ole Opry. He was part of the first generation of bluegrass musicians, his prolific career beginning in 1946. He died in 2016.Eddie Dean is a freelance journalist based in the Washington, DC, metro area. He is the coauthor with Ralph Stanley of Stanleys autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrow. Review "The life chronicled in this autobiography is right out of Southern Gothic lit... The level of detail renders Stanleys tales as captivating as his music." -"Rolling Stone" "A delightful, outspoken surprise... An often tart yet affecting music memoir." -"Kirkus" (starred review) "After all these years [Stanleys] tongue is still sharp." -"Wall Street Journal" "["Man of Constant Sorrow"] is a lot like the man himself: warm, folksy, down to earth, plainspoken, a little blunt and prickly at times." -"New York Times" "No less than the oral history of a quintessentially American music scene." -"Mother Jones" "This late-in-life memoir is a classic- remarkably frank, detailed, revealing, and from time to time it rises to the level of plainspoken poetry. The master of old time singing and clawhammer banjo pulls no punches as he recalls his rural Virginia mountain boyhood, the Stanleys slow rise to success, his career restart after his alcoholic brothers death in 1966, and musicians he played with, from Bill Monroe to Keith Whitley and even Bob Dylan. He settles a few scores, shares his inner thoughts on matters social, political and spiritual, and tells his tale in a flowing, engaging style thats no doubt also a credit to Virginia journalist Dean." -"American Songwriter" (five stars) "In the prologue to "Man of Constant Sorrow" Ralph Stanley writes: Ive always done my best to honor what God gave me. Ive never tried to put any airs on it. I sing it the way I feel it, just the way it comes out. With music writer Eddie Dean, he relates his life in the same speaking voice - honestly and with extraordinary detail." -"Austin Chronicle" "As fascinating as Stanleys personal revelations are, this books greatest value lies in his documentary-like descriptions of the hardships rural musicians faced in the 1940s and 50s-crowded cars, band rivalries, long and dangerous roads and hand-to-mouth l Review Quote "The life chronicled in this autobiography is right out of Southern Gothic lit... The level of detail renders Stanleys tales as captivating as his music." -Rolling Stone "A delightful, outspoken surprise... An often tart yet affecting music memoir." -Kirkus(starred review) "After all these years [Stanleys] tongue is still sharp." -Wall Street Journal "[Man of Constant Sorrow] is a lot like the man himself: warm, folksy, down to earth, plainspoken, a little blunt and prickly at times." -New York Times "No less than the oral history of a quintessentially American music scene." -Mother Jones "This late-in-life memoir is a classic- remarkably frank, detailed, revealing, and from time to time it rises to the level of plainspoken poetry. The master of old time singing and clawhammer banjo pulls no punches as he recalls his rural Virginia mountain boyhood, the Stanleys slow rise to success, his career restart after his alcoholic brothers death in 1966, and musicians he played with, from Bill Monroe to Keith Whitley and even Bob Dylan. He settles a few scores, shares his inner thoughts on matters social, political and spiritual, and tells his tale in a flowing, engaging style thats no doubt also a credit to Virginia journalist Dean." -American Songwriter(five stars) "In the prologue to Man of Constant SorrowRalph Stanley writes: Ive always done my best to honor what God gave me. Ive never tried to put any airs on it. I sing it the way I feel it, just the way it comes out. With music writer Eddie Dean, he relates his life in the same speaking voice - honestly and with extraordinary detail." -Austin Chronicle "As fascinating as Stanleys personal revelations are, this books greatest value lies in his documentary-like descriptions of the hardships rural musicians faced in the 1940s and 50s-crowded cars, band rivalries, long and dangerous roads and hand-to-mouth living." -BookPage "Man of Constant Sorrowbrims with Stanleys homespun wit as he recalls vivid tales of the church and sawmills of his youth, which served as the wellsprings for the Stanley brothers halting, soulful music; their days with King Records, when they were label-mates with soul legend James Brown; and the personal struggles Stanley faced after his brothers alcohol-related death." -American Way "With music journalist Deans help, Stanley has put his speech on paper. Every word about his hardscrabble upbringing, how Carter and he built livings in music, his perseverance after Carters untimely death in 1966, the many personalities he has worked with and admired, and much more, is vibrant with it. Perhaps in the future this lovely book will occupy a position in American autobiography like that of Huckleberry Finnamong American novels, as the great vernacular example of its kind." -Booklist(starred review) "Man of Constant Sorrowis an invaluable book...Youve never heard anything like this story, but if you care anything about great American voices, at the microphone or on the page, you wont miss it." -Newsweek Excerpt from Book Prologue Hills of Home " Id like to go back to the days of my childhood And go to church in the village there To meet my friends and old acquaintance And sing again in the village choir" --"Turn Back," Ralph Stanley When I was just a little boy growing up in the mountains of southwest Virginia, singing was as natural as breathing. I was borned and raised way back in the hills, and a lot of our forefathers, our grandpas and great-uncles and so forth, were of the old Baptist faith, and they all had lonesome voices to sing out those sad old hymns. This was a long time ago, back in the 1930s, and a long way back in steep hills and deep hollows. Where I come from, people lived spread out from one another. There was no radio or telephone. Days would pass between you seeing anybody outside your family. Singing was a way to keep yourself company when you got to feeling lonesome. You could hear singing everywhere from church to the back porch, from the high ridgetops to the head of the creek, wherever there were chores to do or miles to walk or fields to work. Youd hear people tell about a mule that wouldnt budge unless the man behind the plow got to singing. Songs were handed down from father to son and mother to daughter. Singing gave you strength, and you needed plenty to get you through rough times. People from our mountains were used to going without, and singing didnt cost a cent. Not many things you can say that about. Back in our little part of the world, singing was part of everyday living, one of the natural sounds all around us: the water running through the rocks on Big Spraddle Creek and the coon dogs barking down the hollow and the train whistle blowing as the freight cars hauled coal on the Clinchfield Railroad. Course, we didnt pay no mind it. When youre so used to something, you dont go around making a fuss over it. But some voices stood out from all the rest. The way some birds stand out: them hoot owls and whip-poor-wills youd hear when the sun went down and it got dark in the hollow. I always enjoyed a whip-poor-will come to sit on our yard gate and sing of an evening. Some people get spooked by night birds. The old superstition says when you hear a whip-poor-will, somebodys going to die. But I was always taken with the mournful song of a whip-poor-will. It made me feel like I wasnt the only one feeling lonesome. And thats the way it was with my voice. It was lonesome and mournful and it wasnt like nobody elses. I dont say this to brag on myself but because its true. Even today, people from all over the world tell me my voice is different--completely different--from any voice theyve heard. I tell them Ive sung that way since I was a boy. I think God gives everybody a gift, and He wants them to use it. Ive always done my best to honor what God gave me. Ive never tried to put any airs on it. I sing it the way I feel it, just the way it comes out. When I say I sang like this since I was just a knee-high, I mean just what I say. Im well past eighty now, but as far back as I can remember, everyone always told me I had an old-time mountain voice: what they call weathered and lived-in, like something youd hear moaning in the woods late of a night and not from the mouth of a youngun. They called me the boy with the hundred-year-old voice. I reckon if I make it another twenty years, maybe then Ill finally get to sound like my real age. Theres a lot of people would tell me not to even bother trying to catch up. They hear something much older than a hundred years in my singing. They say it puts them in mind of the sacred chanting at a Navajo ceremony, or the gospel singing from ancient times, way back to the olden days before the written word, when people first sung out their troubles. I dont claim to know much about chanting, but the part about gospel music, well, my singing comes right out of the church. The first time I ever sang in public was in a little country church way out in the sticks. It was a one-room building with plank benches and an old woodstove for heat. No special occasion, just another Sunday morning. You might think there wasnt much to be nervous about, but I was scared to death because my dad put me on the spot. It was in 1935 at the Point Truth Primitive Baptist Church in Scott County, Virginia. You just about needed a search party to find it, tucked back in Long Hollow, miles from the nearest town of Nickelsville. In our type of church, the Primitive Baptists, they dont allow musical instruments whatsoever, not a piano or even a tambourine. They sing the old Baptist hymns the old-time way, a cappella-style, just the voices alone. You may have seen in the Bible where it says "make a joyful noise unto the Lord," and thats what a lot of Pentecostals and Holiness churches do around these mountains, and they play guitars and anything else handy and they get pretty rowdy. Its got a good beat to it, it makes you happy, and it makes you want to move. But the Primitive Baptists are different. Theyre strictly business when it comes to their hymns. Its more sad and its more mournful and it fits my voice like nothing else. Usually the preacher or one of the elders will line out the songs for the congregation, which means the leader sings a verse and everybody joins in and sings it right back. On this Sunday morning, my family was sitting all bunched together on the pew-bench like usual: my dad, Lee, and my mother, Lucy, and my older brother, Carter, and me. There was a song my dad wanted to lead on. It was from the old Goble hymnbook: "Salvation, O! The Name I Love." It was one of his favorites, but he never could remember how the song started out. So he laid his hand on my shoulder and he called on me to start the song, to line it out for the congregation. Here we were, the church-house packed and everybody waiting on me. I couldnt even look up I was so scared, just a-trembling from head to toe. I like to stare a hole in the floor and crawl inside and hide. These people were friendly enough, but this was a new church from the one I was used to, the McClure Primitive Baptist Church, close by the hollow I was from back in Dickenson County. Wed moved for a while to the neighboring county, where we lived in an old log house in Long Hollow while my dad worked a sawmill job in the area. When you traveled mostly by foot or by horse or mule, another county--even the next county over--might as well have been another world. To give you an idea of the distances back then: About twenty-five miles from our home place, in the coal town of West Norton in Wise County, lived the singer and banjo player Dock Boggs, who worked in the mines and made some phonograph records in the 1920s, real old-time ballads like "Pretty Polly." Well, I didnt know a thing about Dock Boggs until I met him at the Newport Folk Festival in the 1960s. Nothing against Dock, it just shows you how the world was a whole lot bigger place back then, especially in the mountains of southwest Virginia. So it felt strange and different to me, this little church in a new county filled with folks I didnt rightly know. Even if they were Primitive Baptists like us, they were more like strangers. Here I was, barely eight years old, sitting there in the pew, worried and shaking like a leaf, after my dad called me to lead that hymn. Trapped. I turned to my mother, but she paid me no mind. She was silent and somber, her head bowed down. Much as she wanted, she couldnt help me. In our church, it had to be a man lining out the songs, the preacher or an elder like my dad. I never did hear of a woman leading on a song. And it was unheard of for a child. So Carter couldnt rescue me neither, not even with a funny face hed usually pull to cheer me up. Ever since I was born, I was in the shadow of my big brother. Carter was just eighteen months older, but that was like dog years for me, because he was my idol. I was a real shy, bashful boy--"backwards" is what they called it in the mountains. I just never could mix well with people. And what was so hard for me came easy as pie to Carter, the Stanley brother everybody loved. He took after our dad, tall and handsome with a million-dollar smile and a joke for any occasion. Carter was game for anything. Me, I was a mamas boy, and there wasnt much I wasnt scared of. But it wasnt Carter my dad called on to line out that song. He called on me. Early on, he noticed I had something God-given and unique. He reckoned my voice could carry a hymn as well as any mans in the church-house. And now he was going to let everybody get a good listen. Its the sort of thing fathers do. Besides, he was in a bind, forgetting how to start that song. Scared as I was, I knew how the song went and that was what probably saved me. The melody stuck with me from the first time Id heard it. I was always taken by the sad old Baptist hymns we sang at our home church down by the river in McClure. I can remember singing those hymns to myself around the house when I was four or five years old. I dont know why. I just had a feeling for those songs and I still do today. So I took a deep breath and sung out the opening line the best I could: Salvation, O! The name I love, which came by Christ the Lord above The words come out of me and hung in the air and then faded to nothing. The silence was only for a second, but it seemed to last forever. I thought maybe Id messed up somehow and failed my dad. Then the whole congregation joined in and sang the verse back, tracing the melody just the way I done it, and the church filled up with one big voice. I could feel my heart swell up like to bust. It was a feeling I never had before, and Description for Sales People Ralph Stanley has written hundreds of classic bluegrass songs including White Dove and Man of Constant Sorrow. Stanley rarely gives interviews, making this book a unique insight into his life. The book has gone through three print runs in hardback. Details ISBN1592405843 Author Eddie Dean Short Title MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW Language English ISBN-10 1592405843 ISBN-13 9781592405848 Media Book Format Paperback Audience Age 18-17 Series Gotham Books Year 2010 Illustrations Yes Residence Southwest Harbor, US Imprint Gotham Books Subtitle My Life and Times Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States US Release Date 2010-11-02 UK Release Date 2010-11-02 Publication Date 2010-11-02 Pages 464 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc DEWEY 782.421642092 Audience General NZ Release Date 2010-11-01 AU Release Date 2010-11-01 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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