Birthplace of Country Music Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Hear A 2011 Set by Vince Gill On Mountain Stage

Between 2006 and 2014, Mountain Stage made regular trips to the Paramount Center for the Arts in the Virginia/Tennessee border town of Bristol to raise awareness about the now completed Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

On August 21, 2011, Mountain Stage host Larry Groce welcomed one of the greatest and multi-talented country music artists – Vince Gill, who gave what Groce has described as one of the best sets ever performed on Mountain Stage.

“When we come to Bristol, we like to do some special things in celebration of the Birthplace of Country Music,” Groce said introducing Gill, who has won 21 country music Grammy Awards – the most of any country male artist. “Here is a man who has explored every part of country music and far beyond

He started out in bluegrass, got into mainstream country and pop. If there as anything as a triathlon for music he would no doubt win because he can not only sing wonderfully but he writes great songs, is a wonderful guitar player.”

The laid-back Norman, Oklahoma native showed why he’s such a welcomed and frequent performer on the Grand Ole Opry, interacting early and often with the audience with gentle and self-effacing humor. He then flows into a soulful, stripped down acoustic version of his 1991 hit “Liza Jane,” with his veteran band of Nashville cats, David Hungate on bass, Pete Wasner on keyboards and Billy Thomas on drums.

As a guitarist, Gill is so good he was asked to join Dire Straits at their height, and he’s been pulling double duty singing and playing with The Eagles since 2017. But his superpower throughout his career- from the 1980 No. 1 smash “Let Me Love You Tonight” with Pure Prairie League, to several of his chart-topping solo hits- is his ballad slaying vocal abilities. No male country star can more powerfully drip that vulnerable love ballad vocal honey like Gill. Evidenced here through his beautifully simple and powerful song, “Whenever You Come Around.”

A highlight of this set is the full-on Opry-style comedy routine, with vocal impressions leading up to the sweet song about his father, “The Key to Life.’ Gill described the towering, gruff character as Gen. Patton, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood rolled into one. “One of the best things he ever said to me was – ‘I’ll knock you through a wall and make you fix it,’” Gill said in a gruff voice to a laughing audience.

Gill then paid tribute to his father and to Bristol playing the first song his dad taught him on guitar, The Carter Family’s “Wildwood Flower,” before solemnly paying his respects to his pops.

“I wouldn’t play a guitar or sing songs if it wasn’t for my dad,” said Gill, who as a teenager and young man was in a series of bluegrass bands and these days has a regular Nashville gig with the Time Jumpers. “He sat me down and showed me G, C and D. He said you’re on your own that is all I know. The first thing I learned was recorded right here in this town.”

Gill shared two new songs during this 2011 set, “Threaten Me With Heaven,” which he dedicated to one of the song’s co-writers Will Owsley, who passed away earlier that year, and “Red Words,” a faith-filled tribute to his wife that wouldn’t be released until 2019.

It was grab-the-tissues time when Gill turned in a searing rendition of “Go High Rest On That Mountain” – a 1995 song he started writing after Keith Whitley died in 1989, then finished when his brother Bob died in 1993. “Driving over here I heard a gospel group singing it on the radio on a Sunday morning, and that made me feel pretty good,” Gill said.

Gill closed thanking Mountain Stage for bringing folks together to share in the magic of live music. “I love it when you share a stage with so many different kinds of people and so many different kinds of musicians,” Gill said. “This was a real gift today to get to meet some new friends to hear some people play music that I had never gotten the opportunity to do that with. So as I leave here and go home, I am the one that got the blessing, so thank you.”

Gill’s latest release Okie is available now, and The Eagles “Hotel California” tour have been pushed to 2021.

Set List:

Liza Jane
Whenever You Come Around
Wildwood Flower
The Key to Life
Threaten Me with Heaven
Go Rest High on that Mountain
The Red Words

Recorded August 21, 2011 at the Paramount Bristol in Bristol, TN/VA.

Listen: Vince Gill Has Our Song of the Week

This week’s Listeners’ Choice episode of Mountain Stage comes from a road-show recorded in Bristol, TN/VA with the Birthplace of Country Music.

Our listeners voted on which vintage episodes of Mountain Stage we air throughout the country this Spring. This week, we look back to a show recorded August 21, 2011 at the Paramount Center for the Arts on State Street in the Virginia/Tennessee border town of Bristol. Mountain Stage made regular trips to Bristol from 2006 to 2014 to help raise awareness about the now-completed Birthplace of Country Music museum.

This show featured one of Country Music’s most awarded and beloved performers, Vince Gill. A highly regarded vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, Gill performed perhaps his most recognizable song, “Go Rest High On That Mountain,” in what host Larry Groce calls one of the best sets ever performed on Mountain Stage.

Gill’s latest album, Okie, can be purchased or streamed now.

We’ll also hear performances by Red Molly, David Mayfield Parade, Jim Lauderdale, and West Virginia honky-tonk singer and songwriter John Lilly, during this vintage Mountain Stage.

Hear the entire episode starting this Friday on these public radio stations. While a lot has changed recently, Mountain Stage is still bringing you live performances, on-air, online, and in our podcast. Please consider a gift of support to West Virginia Public Broadcasting to help remember the fun times during these unprecedented times. Your support means a great deal to us. Thank you.

Mountain Stage Remembers Ralph Stanley: 1927-2016

Ralph Stanley, a patriarch of Appalachian music who made four appearances on “Mountain Stage” starting in 1998, died Thursday from difficulties with skin cancer. He was 89. Continue reading to hear performances by Stanley of “Angel Band” and “Pretty Polly” as heard on Mountain Stage.

“Mountain Stage” host and artistic director Larry Groce had this to say:

The skies of Virginia and West Virginia opened last night as Ralph Stanley passed, and poured rain on his home in historic and tragic proportions. Perhaps it’s coincidence. When you hear a voice that sounds like it’s been here forever, it’s hard to believe it will ever be silenced. Ralph Stanley’s singing was something that seemed to grow out of the ground like the trees and springs. Now his body returns to the land. Death couldn’t “spare him over 'til another year” like he sang so many times. But that voice and that spirit will live on. “Oh come Angel Band, come and around me stand, Oh bear me away on your snow white wings to my immortal home. Oh bear me away on your snow white wings to my immortal home.”

Singer Aoife O’Donovan, as a member of Crooked Still, shown here in 2005.

Singer Aoife O’Donovan made her first appearance on “Mountain Stage” as a member of Crooked Still on a show that also featured Stanley. She is one of many guests singing backup along with him on the above version of “Angel Band.” O’Donovan sent us this note:

In November of 2005, Crooked Still was lucky enough to play on the Christmas episode of Mountain Stage, broadcast live from Tamarack in beautiful West Virginia. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys were also on the show – and it was my first time being in the presence of such a legend, such a powerful icon of Bluegrass and roots music. I remember gathering all together for the end of the show, and hearing Ralph sing "Angel Band" from mere inches away – I get chills just thinking about it. We've truly lost a hero. May he rest in peace.

Here is a favorite memory of ours when Ralph joined us in Bristol, TN as guests of the Birthplace of Country Music. An audience member made a request, as politely as an audience member can, and he honored that request.
“I had another ‘un in mind, but if you want to hear “Pretty Polly” you’ll hear “Pretty Polly.”

RalphStanleyPrettyPolly.mp3

Ralph Stanley obliges a special request for "Pretty Polly" in Bristol, TN/VA on July 23, 2006.

For more on the life and accolades of Ralph Stanley, here is a media release from Webster PR.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (June 23, 2016) – Ralph Stanley, a patriarch of Appalachian music who with his brother Carter helped expand and popularize the genre that became known as bluegrass, died Thursday from difficulties with skin cancer. He was 89.

Stanley was born and raised in southwest Virginia, a land of coal mines and deep forests where he and his brother formed the Stanley Brothers and their Clinch Mountain Boys in 1946. Their father would sing them old traditional songs like “Man of Constant Sorrow,” while their mother, a banjo player, taught them the old-time clawhammer style, in which the player’s fingers strike downward at the strings in a rhythmic style.

Heavily influenced by Grand Ole Opry star Bill Monroe, the brothers fused Monroe’s rapid rhythms with the mountain folk songs from groups such as the Carter Family, who hailed from this same rocky corner of Virginia.

The Stanleys created a distinctive three-part harmony that combined the lead vocal of Carter with Ralph’s tenor and an even higher part sung by bandmate Pee Wee Lambert. Carter’s romantic songwriting professed a deep passion for the rural landscape, but also reflected on lonesomeness and personal losses.

Songs like “The Lonesome River,” uses the imagery of the water to evoke the loss of a lover, and “White Dove,” describes the mourning and suffering after the death of a mother and father. In 1951, they popularized “Man of Constant Sorrow,” which was also later recorded by Bob Dylan in the ’60s.

The brothers were swept into the burgeoning folk movement and they toured the country playing folk and bluegrass festivals during the ’60s, including the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and 1964.

But when Carter died of liver disease in 1966, Ralph wasn’t sure he could continue. His brother had been the main songwriter, lead singer and front man, and Ralph, by his own account, was withdrawn and shy, although he had overcome some of his early reticence.

“Within weeks of his passing, I got phone calls and letters and telegrams and they all said don’t quit. They said, ‘We’ve always been behind you and Carter, but now we’ll be behind you even more because we know you’ll need us,'” Stanley told The Associated Press in 2006.

After Carter’s death, Ralph drew even deeper from his Appalachian roots, adopting the a cappella singing style of the Primitive Baptist church where he was raised. He reformed the Clinch Mountain Boys band to include Ray Cline, vocalist Larry Sparks and Melvin Goins. He would change the lineup of the band over the years, later including Jack Cooke, and mentored younger artists like Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs, who also performed with him.

Dylan and Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia praised his work and, in the case of Dylan, joined him for a remake of the Stanley Brothers’ “Lonesome River” in 1997.

He was given an honorary doctorate of music from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, in 1976, and he was often introduced as “Dr. Ralph Stanley.” He performed at the inaugurations of U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, was given a “Living Legends” medal from the Library of Congress and a National Medal of Arts presented by the National Endowment for the Arts and President George W. Bush. He became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2000.

But at age 73, he was introduced to a new generation of fans in 2000 due to his chilling a cappella dirge “O Death” from the hit Coen Brothers’ “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” movie soundtrack. The album was a runaway hit, topping the Billboard 200 chart, as well as the country albums and soundtrack charts, and sold millions of copies.

He won a Grammy for best male country vocal performance in 2002 — beating out Tim McGraw, Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Lyle Lovett — and was the focus of a successful tour and documentary inspired by the soundtrack. The soundtrack, produced by T Bone Burnett, also won a Grammy for album of the year. The following year he and Jim Lauderdale would win a Grammy for best bluegrass album for “Lost in the Lonesome Pines.”

He said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2002 that younger people were coming to see his shows and hear his “old time music,” and was enjoying the belated recognition.

“I wish it had come 25 years sooner,” he said. “I am still enjoying it, but I would have had longer to enjoy it.”

Despite health problems, he continued to record and tour into his 80s, often performing with his son Ralph Stanley II on guitar and his grandson Nathan on mandolin.

Stanley was born in Big Spraddle, Virginia and lived in Sandy Ridge outside of Coeburn, Virginia. His mother was Lucy Jane Smith Stanley and his father was Lee Stanley. He is survived by his wife Jimmie Stanley – they were to celebrate their 48th wedding anniversary on July 2nd. He is also survived by his children: Lisa Stanley Marshall, Tonya Armes Stanley and Ralph Stanley II; His grandchildren: Nathan Stanley, Amber Meade Stanley, Evan Stout, Ashley Marshall, Alexis Marshall, Taylor Stanley, and Ralph Stanley III; and great grandchild Mckenzie Stanley. Memorial service details are pending and will be announced shortly.