$5 Banjo Was No Pig in the Poke for Ralph Stanley

When he was growing up in Stratton, Va., Ralph Stanley had a choice: His aunt Roxie was selling a pig for $5, and a banjo for the same price. As much as young Ralph had a hankering to raise some hogs, he chose the banjo.

More than a half-century has passed since then, during which time Stanley has become one of the certifiable legends of bluegrass music. He and his guitarist brother, Carter, who died in 1966, forged their own niche in bluegrass, with haunting vocal harmonies and a straightforward, melodic approach to their deep-rooted music.

It’s a considerable coup for Laguna Niguel’s tiny Shade Tree Stringed Instruments to be featuring Stanley in its concert schedule, and both of tonight’s shows are long sold out. While the National Heritage Award winner, who turns 65 Tuesday, says he puts as much care and feeling into a show for 50 people as he does for 15,000, he’s not at all unaccustomed to playing for that latter number at music festivals. He also has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, and on a recently taped “American Music Shop” show for TNN where he was joined by Stanley fans Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam and Patti Loveless.

All of which leads him to conclude that his $5 was well spent. Reached by phone Friday at a Bay Area tour stop, Stanley said: “I’m very sure I made the right choice there. I’ve been in this music 46 years professionally, and I still enjoy playing. This traveling is the worst of it, but the playing is still fine. I’m going to slow down some, but I don’t know where I’ll ever completely retire. I enjoy it too much.”

Stanley’s mother played banjo and his father sang the old mountain songs. He and Carter, who was two years older, started out playing in traditional styles but soon fell under the influence of bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, with Ralph adopting the three-fingered playing technique of Earl Scruggs, who then was playing with Monroe.

Before long, the Stanleys began writing their own songs and developing their own style. Ralph once attempted to explain that style: “All the tunes I write are real simple. They are so simple a good musician can’t play them.”

“Well, I’ve actually been told that by good musicians,” he affirmed. “The style I play is so simple it’s hard to get. Earl Scruggs is my favorite banjo player, there’s no doubt. But my banjo I guess is a little more simple, plainer. It may be down to the melody more. What we play, I guess, has got more of a mountain sound, an old-timey sound.”

His shows these days generally include his favorite old-time tunes, including “Rank Stranger,” “Lonesome River” and “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow,” along with new songs and time for audience requests. Audiences have a lot to choose from: Stanley believes that he has recorded as many as 2,000 songs over the years.

His band is still called the Clinch Mountain Boys, as it has been called throughout his and the Stanley Brothers’ career. The current lineup is 25-year vet Curly Ray Cline on fiddle, 21-year member Jack Cooke on bass, 14-year member Junior Blankenship on lead guitar and relative newcomer Ernie Thacker on vocals, with two years in the saddle.

Stanley thinks that there’s no shortage of good young bluegrass players around, but he does detect a lack in many of them. “The worst fault I see to the new bluegrass groups is that they’re hard to identify unless you’re looking at them. I think the older ones have a sound of their own that people can recognize as soon as they hear it. The older ones may stand out more because they were coming up with their sound before any of us knew what bluegrass was supposed to sound like.”

Stanley said he’s never been at a loss for good, distinctive players when he’s needed them for his own band, though. His band members have included Ricky Skaggs and the late Keith Whitley--who, performing together, had opened a show for Stanley and so impressed him that he invited them to visit at his home, where they traded songs on his porch. Skaggs, who was 15 at the time, has said that experience was the turning point in his musical life.