Traveling the High Way Home: Ralph Stanley and the World of Traditional Bluegrass Music (Music in American Life)

John Wright

ISBN 10: 025206478X / ISBN 13: 9780252064784

Published by University of Illinois Press, 1995

About this Item

pp. 304.

Seller Inventory # 8204872

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Traveling the High Way Home: Ralph Stanley and the World of Traditional Bluegrass Music (Music in American Life)
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 025206478X
• ISBN 13: 9780252064784
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

John Wright's collection of interviews and stories about Ralph Stanley puts readers around a campfire at a bluegrass festival while old-timers weave yarns far into the night. Told by those who create, produce, stage, love, and virtually live for old-time mountain music, these tales come from the longtime coworkers, sidemen, promoters, friends, and others in the orbit of the music legend. The storytellers include a scholar who knew Stanley from the early days, the housewife who ran the Stanley Brothers Fan Club, and a souvenir seller for whom the discovery of Stanley's music was almost a religious experience.

Wright also uses these invaluable oral histories as a foundation to describe and evaluate Stanley's long career with the Clinch Mountain Boys and the development of his music after the death of his brother Carter. An appendix covers Ralph's prolific recording activity through the mid-1990s, including a breathtaking forty-five albums compromising more than 550 songs and tunes.

About the Author

John Wright is the John Evans Professor of the Latin Language and Literature at Northwestern University and a columnist for Banjo Newsletter.