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Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times |  | Authors: Ralph Stanley, Eddie Dean
Publisher: Gotham
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy New: $2.61
as of 3/19/2010 07:53 MDT details
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Seller: abmediaservices
Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 61723
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.6
ISBN: 1592404251
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.642092
EAN: 9781592404254
ASIN: 1592404251
Publication Date: October 15, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9781592404254 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
A giant of American music opens the book on his wrenching professional and personal journeys, paying tribute to the vanishing Appalachian culture that gave him his voice.
He was there at the beginning of bluegrass. Yet his music, forged in the remote hills and hollows of Southwest Virginia, has even deeper roots. In Man of Constant Sorrow, Dr. Ralph Stanley gives a surprisingly candid look back on his long and incredible career as the patriarch of old-time mountain music.
Marked by Dr. Ralph Stanleys banjo picking, his brother Carters guitar playing, and their haunting and distinctive harmonies, the Stanley Brothers began their career in 1946 and blessed the world of bluegrass with hundreds of classic songs, including White Dove, Rank Stranger, and what has become Dr. Ralphs signature song, Man of Constant Sorrow. Carter died in 1966 after years of alcohol abuse, but Dr. Ralph Stanley carried on and is still at the top of his game, playing to audiences across the country today at age eighty-one. Rarely giving interviews, he now grants fans the book they have been waiting for, filled with frank recollections, from his boyhood of dire poverty in the Appalachian coalfields to his early musical success with his brother, to years of hard traveling on the road with the Clinch Mountain Boys, to the recent, jubilant revival of a sound he helped create.
The story of how a musical art now popular around the world was crafted by two brothers from a dying mountain culture, Man of Constant Sorrow captures a life harmonized with equal measures of tragedy and triumph.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
 man of constant sorrow: my life and times March 12, 2010
John Cording
i enjoy old time mountain music and more recent bluegrass. it was interesting to get an insider's view and opinion of some of my music heroes. i enjoyed Ralph Stanley's English expressions and "dialect."
 Bluegrass/OldTyme Legend February 14, 2010
Pickels (Cobourg Ont. Canada)
This book is O.K. for a limited market. You must be a knowledgable fan to appreciate all of Dr. Ralphs' Stories!
 Bluegrass fans will enjoy this book. February 10, 2010
Diane Ross (Indianapolis, IN)
I got this book as a gift for my husband, who is a Ralph Stanley fan. He thoroughly enjoyed it and for days was reading snippets to me or telling me tidbits of bluegrass history. It was especially enjoyable because we had gone to the festival at the old homeplace in Virginia and had seen first hand many of the places described in the book. The conversational style makes this a fast,easy read. It's a book that I think most bluegrass fans would enjoy.
MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS February 2, 2010
T. J. Worthington (Sparta, NC, USA)
Half way through reading Ralph Stanley's memoir, I went to a concert at Fairview Ruritan and he signed it for me. I'm not an autograph seeker, but Ralph Stanley is special. I live in the mountains of his culture, not far south from him. First, the memoir is written almost in his speaking voice. I could hear him talk. I know the accent, the manner of speaking. He talks like an awful lot of men of these mountains over 80. Mountain culture has been changing so fast that each generation is a new culture. Dean, who transcribed Stanley's words from recordings to paper, did a beautiful job of keeping Stanley's manner of speech, yet at the same time polishing it a little bit because some ways of speaking in the mountains sound ignorant to the middle class reader who is used to reading school grammar. A lot of times he has Ralph saying 'those' when a man of these mountains, Ralph too, says 'them.' That sounds especailly ignorant outside the mountains, but in the mountains, it's correct grammar. He gave a beautiful depiction of life in the mountains in his early years when he and Carter were on the road.
Ralph Stanley's music was born in these mountains of mountain music. Ralph and his brother Carter gave a new sound to mountain music, one the mountain people embrace. Their music was so particular to these mountains they didn't get much airplay outside the mountains and didn't go out of the mountains much for concerts. The Stanley Brothers were one of the 3 first bluegrass bands, Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys, Flatt & Scruggs' Foggy Mountain Boys, and The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys. Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Carter Stanley are the three voices of original bluegrass.
I was glad to be able to hear Ralph's story, him telling it. He is so of these mountains, and his music is so of these mountains, that it can be said without fear of contradiction that Ralph Stanley IS these mountains. He tells his story from birth to present. I wondered how Dean got Ralph to talk so much. By his own confession he's not a talker. I can see it in his face on stage. His face never changes expression during a song. Mountain people whose faces never change are people of very few words. But he can sing a song. He can sing a song like nobody else. It's a beautiful story told by a beautiful human being.
The Genuine Ralph Stanley January 21, 2010
J. Pendleton (Fleetwood, PA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been a Stanley for many years; have seen Ralph at numerous concerts and festivals since 1964 or so. I can't count the Stanley albums, tapes, and CDs I have; I'd have to weigh them! I once went to a show the Stanley Bros. did the winter before Carter died at Campbell's Corner in Oxford, PA with 4 or 5 friends in a snowstorm and there was a total of maybe 8 people in the front row. They played the full time and conversed with the audience the whole time, reminiscing and taking requests.
I have spoken with Ralph and members of his bands on a number of occasions over the years, and the language and phrases Eddie Dean uses are spot on the real thing. This is a great read for anyone interested in traditional-type bluegrass and its history and particularly the Stanleys. Highly recommended; the book reads like Ralph actually wrote it with his own hand.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
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