Ralph Stanley II

But the "old" or the "SW Virginia" Ralph Stanley is something that would sell in view of the mountains of East Tennessee and not in Mountain View, CA. So, you need someone to tell Ralph Stanley, I mean Dr. Ralph Stanley (he received an honorary doctorate in 1976 from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN--just down the road from Dickenson County VA. At the time LMU had an enrollment of about 1,400 undergraduates, with its best days in the future) this fact. Would such a man have been the esteemed music producer T-Bone Burnett? Probably. So, on that October 24 late afternoon, in the dank and windy confines of Shoreline Amphitheater, Stanley entertained us with the light, airy, and upbeat Gospel tune "Lift Him Up." Here are a few of the words of that song, based on John 4. We join the song with Jesus meeting the woman at the well:

"When Jesus met the woman at Jakob's well
He certainly did have a sweet message to tell
The woman commenced wondering because she seen He was a Jew
He came to draw men unto Him

Oh lift Him up that's all
Lift Him up in His word
If you'll tell the Name of Jesus everywhere
If you'll keep His name a ringing everywhere that you go
He will draw men unto Him.."

It is upbeat, quaintly religious in an inoffensive way, attractive, even a bit fun. And, religion can be forgiven a country musician, of course, even if its mainstream variety can't really be forgiven in a scientist or professor at a modern liberal arts university. My, even Kris Kristofferson asked the audience to pray, if that was their inclination, for Merle Haggard, who was absent from the concert but whose complexion at the time probably fit his name. And, Richie Furay, the winsome and charismatic "center" guy in the Buffalo Springfield performance, is widely known as a "born again" minister. So, that is how you make a living legend from another place and era into a living legend in the Bay Area.

One Other Transformation

But another thing was necessary. Ralph Stanley had earned the right over the years to speak his mind freely. Pain and loss has a way of giving you that authority. Also, if you are very good at what you do, you can freely criticize those who don't do it quite as well as you do but claim to be doing the same thing. Perhaps there is a little professional jealousy in the latter, but this kind of authority to criticize goes with the territory. So, Ralph had a dust-up in the early part of the decade with rising country music start Tim McGraw. When Stanley won a 2002 Grammy for best male country performance, and when he felt that McGraw dissed him following his win, he had some choice words to say about McGraw: "He wouldn't know a real country song if it kicked him in the ass."

Of course not, but that isn't the point. Tim McGraw can be a big "country "person only if he crosses over--to the large white mainstream media and money culture. He learned how to do that early in life but Ralph, in 2002, still hadn't yet fully learned how to do so. So, some of the controversy with McGraw may have been motivated by Stanley's desire to "make it" in the world that had long eluded him but which, to McGraw, seemed to come so effortlessly.

T-Bone Burnett, among others, would know how to solve this problem. It had to come through "toning down" the controversy with McGraw. And so, as is common knowledge, the "first draft" of Stanley's 2009 autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrows, had at least one passage quite critical of McGraw. When the book was released, however, the offending passage was dropped. One might argue that such a drop was motivated by the desire to avoid a lawsuit, but I see it as a further example of the eagerness to take off the rough SW Virginia edges off of Ralph Stanley so that he would be acceptable in the modern wealthy self-congratulatory moderate/liberal world. Controversies sometimes are exactly what media outlets love--witness the "anti-Islam" controversy going on now between Bill O'Reilly, Juan Williams, Joy Behar and others. Everyone wins, except possibly NPR, which has reached new levels of ineptness in handling Juan Williams' departure.

But controversy isn't good for country musicians, especially among the self-congratulatory modern wealthy moderate to liberal Bay Area elite. Why? Because they are collecting exotic icons, and they want an image of the icon rather than the true person who is behind the voice. They want something that will give them an unvarnished and "cleaned up" picture, much like they want to come home after a hard day of work to their manicured lawn, obedient children and clean house, which the Hispanic housekeepers and lawn people have given them. It only matters that the housekeeper or nanny is/are "illegal" if you are running for Governor or seeking an appointment to a federal judgeship.

Testing the Hypothesis

It is in this context of the "transformation" of Ralph Stanley in the last decade that an insightful review of his 2009 autobiography makes sense. The reviewer's thesis doesn't directly relate to my argument here, but it is fully consistent with it. He writes, in January 2010:

"I am a Stanley fan of about 25 years. This book is appropriate to the Ralph Stanley of 2009, in his third career--as the grand old man of bluegrass. I must confess he lost me about 8 years ago when his show became more of a circus than anything else. I was lucky enough to see him when he still played the banjo, Curly Ray on fiddle and the band just driving the p*ss out of the music. Somehow, something vital has gone....A commodity fast becoming an impossibility to find, especially in entertainment. What we get now is a show.."

I contend that this fellow musician's dissatisfaction with the "old" Ralph Stanley, which he said began about 2001 or 2002, is fully compatible with my thesis regarding not only Stanley's desire to become more "mainstream," but of someone "managing" him to take the "rough edges" off of him so that he would "sell" to the kind of audience which loved him on October 24 in Mountain View.

Conclusion

So, what's wrong with this? Nothing, really. Everyone seems to get what they want, except the people that knew him "when" and wanted him to stay that way. Ralph has gotten a new lease on life by appealing to new audiences; he even has Neil Young calling him "Dr" in front of a sellout audience (hm...no double-entendre meant). Ralph is now on his best behavior, not criticizing top musicians who have crossed over to the mainstream culture and embracing a more light-hearted Gospel music. We will really be able to tell that he has made it in this new culture when he can sing "O Death" with all of its theological problematics for Bay Area folks and still be wildly applauded. But the Bay Area audience is not ready yet for that. It is still too busy congratulating itself on welcoming Ralph into its living room.

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