An
Appalachian Summit: Ralph Stanley Sings The Carter Family
DMZ/Columbia Unveils 13-Song Tribute
Album May 30
Nashville, TN--Two
of the greatest talents in the history of Appalachian music converge May 30 when
DMZ/Columbia Records presents Ralph
Stanley: A Distant Land To Roam—Songs Of The Carter Family.
Still a commanding presence at 79, Ralph Stanley re-ignites the drama
of these Depression-era classics that first thrilled him as a boy.
Backing Stanley on this
beautifully produced and packaged homage are his band, the Clinch Mountain Boys,
legendary singer and autoharpist Mike Seeger and bassist Dennis Crouch.
The album is executive produced by T Bone Burnett—the musical force
behind the soundtracks of O Brother, Where
Art Thou? and Walk The Line—and
co-produced by Larry Ehrlich and Bob Neuwirth.
“Ralph Stanley is like an
uncle to us and now that all my uncles are gone, Ralph’s singing is even more
precious. This album of classic
folk songs is one of his best.” says Garrison Keillor, who has featured the
Grand Ole Opry star and three-time Grammy winner several times on his A Prairie Home Companion radio show.
David Gates, a senior editor
of Newsweek who also profiled Stanley for The New Yorker, says “A
Distant Land to Roam is indispensable: [Here is] the foremost interpreter of
traditional country music singing some of the great canonical songs. . . .
[This is] one of his most moving recordings."
Notes
Jon Weisberger, contributing editor to No Depression:
“Ralph's stirring, mournful voice is a perfect match for the Carter
Family's songs. Mike Seeger's
autoharp and James Alan Shelton's ‘Carter lick’ guitar act as wonderful
bridges between the past and present. It
is great to hear The Clinch Mountain Boys behind the master once again. ”
From 1927, when they made
their first recordings, until they disbanded in 1943, A. P., Sara and Maybelle
Carter were the collective voice of rural America.
Hailing from Maces Springs, Virginia—just a few mountainous miles from
where Stanley was born—the Carters enriched country music with a torrent of
soulful ballads and hymns, among them “Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow,”
“Keep On The Sunny Side” and the incomparable “Wildwood Flower.”
Stanley chose 13 rarer gems
for this tribute: “God Gave Noah
The Rainbow Sign,” “Little Moses,” “Worried Man Blues,” “Longing For
Home,” “Motherless Children,” “Storms Are On The Ocean,” “Keep On
The Firing Line,” “Engine 143,” “I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue
Eyes,” “Orphan Child,” “Hill Lone And Grey,” “Waves On The Sea”
and “Distant Land To Roam.”
The Carter Family made its
first recordings in Bristol, the small Appalachian town that straddles the
Virginia/Tennessee border. And it
was in this same hamlet 19 years later that Stanley would launch his radio
career with his older brother, Carter. Over
the next 20 years—until Carter’s death in 1966—the Stanley Brothers became
one of the most beloved and influential acts in the burgeoning field of
bluegrass music.
The element that set the
Stanleys most apart from other bluegrass duos was Ralph’s high, forlorn tenor
voice, an instrument that seemed to convey all the world’s griefs and regrets.
It was—and is—a voice perfectly suited to the Carter Family laments.
“I met all of the Carters,” Stanley recalls, “and I got to know A.P.
pretty well when Carter and I were doing our early radio work on WCYB in
Bristol, Virginia.”
Besides thrilling to
Stanley’s timeless music, buyers of A
Distant Land To Roam will also rejoice in the album’s cover art, created
by Brian
Willse, and the dramatic photos of Stanley, created by Jim McGuire.
Adds Sony Music Nashville
president John Grady, “We all have musical heroes.
One of mine is Ralph Stanley. To
me, he is Elvis Presley. He is
easily one of the most important musicians in American history.
There is, has been, and always will be ONE Ralph Stanley.
Thank God he is in my lifetime.”
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Contacts:
Norma Morris, Morris Public
Relations, 615 952-9250, norma@morrispr.biz
Craig Campbell, VP Press & Publicity, Sony Music Nashville, 615
858-1314, craig.campbell@sonybmg.com