Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys – Live at McCabe’s Guitar Shop
In which Ralph Stanley gets to take advantage of his surprise late-in-life emergence as pop superstar to do what he’s always most wanted to in the first place: present himself to new fans in his natural context as leader, member and sometime lead singer of this band. There have, of course, been many live recordings over the 50-plus years of the Clinch Mountain Boys and earlier Stanley Brothers; this new one, recorded at the legendary Santa Monica, California, acoustic venue, is a document of the strong, re-energized and more focused shows the Boys have been letting loose since the new attention and awards for Stanley surfaced.
So yes, ol’ Ralph sings “Man Of Constant Sorrow” — still Stanley style, not over-influenced by the bouncy Soggy Bottom version, and “Oh Death”, with the extra poignancy added by both the silence that envelops a live version, and, OK, the singer’s age. (An irony: Stanley performed a wickedly strong version of this number 30 years ago — in a duet with a teenage Keith Whitley.)
But the full band’s show rules here, with Stanley in his usual role as supporting singer and sometimes even second banjo player. On the hoary “Orange Blossom Special” and on “Cacklin’ Hen”, James Price provides his typically smooth but fiery fiddling, always suggestive of old-timey as well as bluegrass, and so right for Ralph. Steve Sparkman shows why there are two banjos in the band on the old “Clinch Mountain Backstep”, and James Shelton picks a fine acoustic guitar lead on “Sunny Side Of The Mountain”.
The interesting news for followers of this act — and most gratifying, no doubt, for his father — is the latter-day emergence of Ralph II, the son, as an effective new lead singer, a possibility some fans had doubted would happen. He’s especially strong here in straight country stylings reminiscent of the Lefty Frizzell-via-Randy Travis honky-tonk style, as in “Will You Miss Me?” and the gospel number “Jesus Savior, Pilot Me”.
With old bass hand Jack Cooke drilling the beat, the Boys finish with a driving series of straight bluegrass pyrotechnics, culminating in a live “Rank Strangers To Me” that’s been in the set practically since the Stanleys began — and still grabs you.