Bluegrass Legend Ralph Stanley To Command Symphony Center

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 15, 2011 9:00PM

Ralph Stanley came out of Virginia like a cannonball with his late brother Carter in the mid-1940s with their own take on Bill Monroe's style of hard-driving bluegrass. But it was his switch to the more raw, unadorned mountain style of the music, anchored by his own unique "clawhammer" style picking on the banjo. the "Stanley style" of clawhammer banjo is done by picking with three fingers in a continuous series of rolls close to the instrument's bridge, giving the strings a distinct resonance when picked. Stanley's voice is reedy tenor as old as the hills of southwestern Virginia he still calls home. Stanley's vocals on the Appalachian dirge "O Death" from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack eventually won him a Grammy in 2002.

Stanley's long-running band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, have served as a proving ground for modern bluegrass superstar Ricky Skaggs and the late country singer Keith Whitley, and he was the first artist inducted into the Grand Old Opry in the new millennium. Stanley brings his Clinch Mountain Boys to Symphony Center tomorrow for a double bill of the old with the young. Opening for Stanley is Cherryholmes, a sextet consisting of father Jere, mother Sandy, and siblings Cia Leigh, BJ, Skip, and Molly Kate that combines the instrumental virtuosity of bluegrass with complex, multi-part harmonies.

Ralph Stanley anf his Clinch Mountain Boys with Cherryholmes at Symphony Center, 8 p.m. April 16. Tickets are available at cso.org or calling 312-294-3000.