Ralph Stanley has made a lot of hay out of the track \u201cMan Of Constant Sorrow.\u201d\u00a0 Before the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou<\/i> movie was released, he was just one of dozens of artists who had performed the song.\u00a0 Now, he has taken it on as a mantra, pushing his own newer versions of the song and using it as the title to his autobiography.\u00a0 And in January of 2015, he released it again, this time as Ralph Stanley And Friends: A Man Of Constant Sorrow<\/i>.\u00a0 This album features a series of duets with many other household name musicians, including some you might not expect to find cavorting with an octogenarian banjo picker from southwestern Virginia.<\/p>\n
The album mixes the secular and the gospel, like many of Stanley\u2019s albums have.\u00a0The first track is a classic gospel track \u201cWe Shall Rise\u201d with the smooth baritone-voiced country star Josh Turner.\u00a0Lee Ann Womack comes on with a powerful and heartfelt version of \u201cWhite Dove.\u201d\u00a0Stanley\u2019s grandson Nathan Stanley joins him with the Stanley Brothers classic \u201cRank Stranger,\u201d in which the younger Stanley does a fine job of channeling Ralph\u2019s late brother Carter, who used to sing the lead on the song decades ago.\u00a0 \u201cPig In A Pen,\u201d featuring Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, is a superb example of Appalachian artistry: humble lyrics, solid harmonies, and claw hammer style banjo picking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are also a couple tracks that can raise eyebrows.\u00a0Elvis Costello joins Dr. Stanley on a solid version of \u201cRed Wicked Wine.\u201d\u00a0Costello for one seems very at ease in his role on the bluegrass track, and the two pull off a classic sounding duet.\u00a0The strangest track is a haunting version of \u201cTwo Coats\u201d with Led Zeppelin\u2019s Robert Plant.\u00a0This one is a head scratcher, because Plant and Stanley do not mix well at all on this.\u00a0Plus, the track is slowed down even beyond its usual slow pace in order to create a haunting, drone-like quality.\u00a0The song is an old and powerful gospel tune, sung in minor harmony, and one that Stanley first recorded decades ago.\u00a0 But this version misses the mark and only gets points for placing Plant in such a strange context.\u00a0Other notable tracks include \u201cI Only Exist\u201d with country star Dierks Bentley.\u00a0On this, Bentley really sounds like he is trying too hard to sound soulful.\u00a0\u201cHills Of Home\u201d is a sad reminiscence from Stanley to his long dead brother and musical partner, Carter, who passed away in 1966.<\/p>\n
Even though Ralph has now stopped touring actively, it is great to see him still active in recording.\u00a0Ralph Stanley And Friends: Man Of Constant Sorrow<\/i> should help keep his legacy alive, and releasing it through the Cracker Barrel chain restaurant will direct it at an audience that is likely to appreciate his many contributions to Americana music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":32297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8785],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-44050","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ralph-stanley","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44050"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}