Distant Land to Roam

Ralph Stanley | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 30, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000EU1PPU
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,312 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #81 in Music > World Music > North America > Appalachian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He earned every Star., May 31, 2006

By 

John A. Gregorio (Castalian Springs, TN) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Distant Land to Roam (Audio CD)

The Carter Family Songs and Ralph Stanley. How could it not be anything less than great. I suppose it could as most musician have a cd in their catalog that they would rather forget.
You can look at the reviews of his other cds, and they will state how great a voice he has for country/oldtime (chose your label) music. There are a handful of musician who can sing this music and take you back to the times it was written and the people who wrote and sung it. Jeanette Carter comes to my mind this morning.
There are many fine modern covers that are good in their own right by Emmylou Harris and others, but the primal, elemental, born of the mountains voice of Ralph Stanley brings these songs to the place they always must return, the soil.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I was surprised, June 9, 2006

By 

moe armstrong "Moe Armstrong" (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Distant Land to Roam (Audio CD)

First off, I love Ralph Stanley. I been listening to Ralph and Carter Stanley for decades. I even got a small farm spread in Virginia close to Ralph Stanley. Seen Ralph and the group at the Russell County Fair. So, I knew what to expect. I was wrong.

This album is milestorne. Forget, that this is the Carter Family and I been singing and listening to this stuff for over fifty years. I have never heard Ralph Stanley this good and never heard the Carter Family songs done with such conviction. This album shows the genius of T Bone Burnett. He is able to take a person who I have heard for years and songs that I have known and sung for years-and make a musical materpiece. Bring out something that I never heard before.

The only experience that I can compare this to are seeing the photos of Ansel Adams. Lanscapes from the South West and towns in New Mexico where I had traveled. He captured an essence that I had driven by and missed every day.

God bless the talent of Ralph Stanley. He as seen a life which will never come around again. Thank you T Bone Burnett for being able to capture the deepest essence of Ralph Stanley.

moe armstrong

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bluegrass legend revisits his country roots, June 16, 2006

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Distant Land to Roam (Audio CD)

Though Ralph Stanley made his name as a purveyor of bluegrass, his earliest influences - the music that he and his brother Carter grew up with - was the songbook of fellow Virginians, The Carter Family. Stanley's musical legacy (both with his brother and solo) followed many of the conventions laid down by Bill Monroe, but the forlorn and mournful tone of his singing has always been rooted in the Southern songs of tragedy and deliverance collected by A.P. Carter. With this latest release, Stanley revisits the depression-era songs of his childhood, bringing the wisdom of his years (and the breathtaking burnish of his aging voice) to bear on the emotional foundations of his youth.

Backed by his own Clinch Mountain Boys (augmented by Mike Seeger on autoharp), this is a backporch folk album, without the speedy tempos and intricate picking of the group's bluegrass work. The song selection mixes familiar Carter songs like "Worried Man Blues" and "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" with less well-known entries that span the pain, longing, and ultimate faith that have sustained the Carter Family catalog for over a half-century. At 79, and with a lengthy career that's brought international fame, Stanley serves easily as a living link back to the hard-scrabble lives from which these songs sprang, and the family of artists that originally brought them to fame.

Those who've known Stanley's work since the early days, as well as those who came on-board with his broader emergence in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" will treasure this opportunity to hear a master circle back to his roots. The Carter Family's 75-year-old songbook once again proves itself a vital, living and agelessly relevant collection. [©2006 hyperbolium dot com]