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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Legendary
Triple Grammy-winning, Bluegrass Hall of Famer Bringing His Band
to Long’s Park for a Free Performance June 13, 2010.
LANCASTER, PA -- Bluegrass legend Dr. Ralph Stanley &
His Clinch Mountain Boys are coming to Long’s Park
Sunday, June 13, 2010. The International Bluegrass Hall of Famer
and his band captured a global following with their double Grammy-winning
performance on the Coen Brothers’ movie, O Brother, Where
Art Thou? soundtrack.
Their free performance in the 2010 Long’s Park Summer Music
Series will begin at 7:30 pm.
The sponsor of the June 13 concert will be Susquehanna Bank.
Ralph Stanley was born in the rugged Clinch Mountains
of southwestern Virginia, where he and his brother Carter learned
the basics of the old clawhammer style of banjo playing as youngsters
from their mother. Known for this distinctive “Stanley style”
of banjo playing, Ralph Stanley and Carter first brought
their traditional, rural bluegrass music to the stage after returning
home from World War II. Their music blended an unusual, minor key
style common in their Primitive Unitarian Universalist Church with
sweet harmonies characteristic of the Carter family. Soon they were
seen and heard on radio and TV and signed to record their first
album.
“Stanley style” banjo evolved from a three-fingered, Scruggs
style of play. It is distinguished by an incredibly fast, forward
roll led by an index finger played a capo in high registers.
“[Ralph Stanley] has come to symbolize the timelessness and
durability of this old music and this region,” wrote The
Roanoke Times.
The duo’s active performance and recording schedule continued
for two decades. Carter Stanley’s death in 1966 ended
that fraternal partnership but led to Ralph Stanley’s
revival of their band, The Clinch Mountain Boys, and
over 40 more years of groundbreaking bluegrass music. This second
phase of his legendary career introduced an older, more haunting
sound to his music, heightened by his craggy tenor singing and clawhammer-influenced
banjo playing.
As a recording artist, Ralph Stanley has performed
on more than 170 albums. He won his first two Grammys in 2001 when
the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? in which he
appeared prominently was released. Voted Album of the Year, his
chilling rendition of the Appalachian dirge, O Death, was
also named as the Best Male Country Vocal performance. In 2002,
his collaboration with Jim Lauderdale, “Lost in the Lonesome
Pines,” won Stanley his third Grammy as Best Bluegrass Album.
Known as “Dr. Stanley” after receiving an
honorary doctorate of music from the Lincoln Memorial University
in Harrogate, Tennessee, he and his brother were inducted into the
International Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 1992. In 2000, he was installed
in the Grand Ole Opry. He was awarded the prestigious National Medal
of the Arts, the country’s highest honor for artistic excellence,
in 2006. The following year he was nominated for another Grammy
for his “A Distant Land to Roam: Songs of the Carter Family”
album. His 2007 album, “Mountain Preacher’s Child,”
moved to Number 9 on the bluegrass chart.
In addition to Dr. Stanley, The Clinch Mountain Boys
include his son, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Ralph Stanley
II; grandson, vocalist, guitarist and spoon player Nathan Stanley;
lead guitarist James Alan Shelton; bassist James Cameron; banjo
player Steve Sparkman and fiddler Dewey Brown.
The 48th annual Long’s Park Summer Music Series is produced
and underwritten by the Long’s Park Amphitheater Foundation.
The 13 weeks of award-winning, live performances are presented free
of charge at Long’s Park, thanks to generous sponsors, private
donors and proceeds of the Labor Day weekend Long’s Park Art
& Craft Festival. Season sponsors are Pennsylvania College of
Art & Design and Susquehanna Bank. Season media sponsors are
WARM 103 and 96.1 WSOX. Weather sponsor is WGAL-TV News 8. Building
sponsor is Wickersham Construction and Engineering, Inc.
Partial funding has been provided through a grant from the Pennsylvania
Council on the Arts (PCA), a state agency funded by an annual state
appropriation and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal
agency. PCA supplies funding to nonprofit, tax-exempt corporations,
a unit of government or a school district with arts programming
or services in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Long’s Park concertgoers are invited to bring picnics, blankets
and lawn chairs to the park. A selection of food purveyors will
also be in the park, offering a complete meal’s worth of family
foods and desserts. Long’s Park is an alcohol-free park.
Long’s Park is conveniently located at 1441 Harrisburg Pike
in Lancaster, just off Route 30 across from Park City Center. All
events are free of charge and held rain or shine, except in the
case of dangerously inclement weather.
Additional information and links to musical previews of Long’s
Park’s performers can be found at www.longspark.org
or on Facebook. For details on corporate sponsorships of the Long’s
Park Summer Music Series and to learn how to make individual and
corporate contributions, contact the Long’s Park Amphitheater
Foundation at www.longspark.org.
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