Man of Constant Sorrow

My life and times
Dr. Ralph Stanley with Eddie Dean

When he was on her NPR show promoting this book, I heard Diane Rehm ask Ralph Stanley if he thought of himself as a man of constant sorrow. His answer was that yes, he had sung the song of that title for many years and that he felt that the way he sang it communicated it's meaning very well. That is hardly the answer Diane was looking for and, after reading the book, I have concluded that while Dr. Stanley has had his share of heartache in his long life, that he has had his share of joy as well. But his use, for this book, of the song title so closely associated with the Cohen Brothers' Oh Brothr Where Art Thou, (not the song that Stanley sang in the movie) is entirely justified by long association. Anyway, it wouldn't work to title his autobiography Oh Death.

Man of Constant Sorrow is an autobiographic look at the Stanley Brothers, the Clinch Mountain Boys and old time mountain music from the inside. Dr. Stanley says a number of times that he does not consider what he calls "the Stanley sound" to be bluegrass. The music industry mostly disagrees with him, but that's OK.

Dr. Stanley's reminiscences have been compiled and organized by Eddie Dean, a music journalist associated with the Washington D.C. City Paper and co-author of another book Pure Country about country music performers coming through the outdoor music parks in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 1950s and early 1960s. The book is written in the first person in the voice of Ralph Stanley and preserving the flavor of his rural southwestern Virginia speech.

You may have noticed that I refer to Ralph Stanley as "Dr.Stanley" in this posting. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee in 1976. Dr. Stanley makes it perfectly clear that he is quite proud of his degree and that he likes people to address him that way. At the same time he makes it clear that he is just a country boy who has been fortunate enough to make his living playing music. Pride and modesty going hand in hand.

There are some stories in the book about others in the bluegrass and country music filed, especially Bill Monroe, whom both Ralph Stanley and his older brother Carter worked at times. There is a bit of grousing about some people in the field. John Duffy, of the Seldom Scene takes the worst licking. I understand that much material of this kind was left out of the manuscript at Eddie Dean's insistence. Without going into detail, I agree with Dr. Stanley's assessment of Tim McGraw and the contemporary stable of country music stars. It's well known to everyone over fifty than no good music has been recorded since 1969 or thereabouts.

Note: there is a companion post, with video, on my music blog, Clark's Picks.

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This post is in the 44th


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keywords: biography, memoir, music, bluegrass, Ralph Stanley

The Mayor of McDougal Street

a Memoir
Dave Van Ronk
with Elijah Wald

This book was originally envisioned as a history of the Greenwich Village folk music scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Dave and Elijah were planning to collaborate on it, using Elijah's research skills, and Dave's memory and rye sense of humor. Soon after work began, with only a few scribbled notes on Dave's part and a couple of hours of interviews under Elijah's belt, Dave was diagnosed with cancer and went into a rapid decline. Rather than abandon the project Elijah used all of the written and filmed interviews and recorded stage patter he could find from Dave's career to put together the book in Dave's own words.

Since I have them, let me tell my own two Dave Van Ronk stories. In 1970, I think it was, I saw Dave perform at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. He sang Cocaine Blues among other songs and with his gravely Brookynese voice his slouching posture and his scruffy appearance he was so effective that I wondered how he had managed to survive so long. Dave would have been 34 years old at the time.

Back in the late '90s I had the privilege of doing sound for Dave at a concert. I was used to spending an hour or more tweaking the EQ for people like Tom Rush and Livingston Taylor, eventually getting everything back to just about the way I started, to satisfy them with their sound. Dave sat down on his stool, strummed a few chords, sang about half a chorus of a song and mumbled, "That sound pretty good to me," got up and went to the green room. I don't envy Elijah's listening to hours of concert recordings for the stage patter. Dave loved to talk and told great stories about where he learned songs, but he mumbled softly, paying no attention to mic placement. His singing was loud and on mic so it was hard to hear him while he rambled on.

Elijah Wald soldiered on, though, an put together an interesting and coherent story of Dave's experience, of becoming a folksinger despite himself, living in his native New York but miles away from his mother's home across the east river. Dave dropped out of high school and gradually moved in to the Village, sleeping on floors and couches in other people's apartments. He wanted to play jazz in the worst way and put together a band which did. He played banjo because guitar was not considered authentic enough for a trad jazz band. Dave calls himself a "moldy fig" in jazz parlance of the time, as opposed to those awful beboppers playing their incomprehensible stuff. Incidentally Dave says in the book that he was insufferable about it.

As time went by, Dave realized that he was not going to be able to make a living playing Dixieland banjo and he went back to the guitar to become a solo act. He played his traditional jazz songs, plus others that he learned from other guitarists in Washington Square on Sunday afternoons. By default Dave became a folksinger. He hated that title.

There are many stories in the book about Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Rev. Gary Davis, Peter Paul and Mary - just about everybody that was part of that scene, all told by Dave in his own words, not to mention old time jazz musicians like Clarence Williams, who had recorded Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong back in the 1920's doing songs that Clarence wrote. It must have been a nightmare, or a labor of love for Elijah Wald, a former guitar student of Dave's and a long time friend, to find and write down all of Dave's stories of the time. It makes fascinating reading. For a video of Dave singing a Bessie Smith song and a snippet of his reminiscences, go to my music blog here.