Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times

(Author), Eddie Dean (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Stanley's life spans the history of recorded bluegrass and country music, but his high, lonesome voice encompasses human suffering throughout time. Born in 1927, Stanley and his brother and first singing partner, Carter, grew up in the mountains of southwestern Virginia where Stanley learned old-time music in a Primitive Baptist church and from his mother, who picked the banjo clawhammer style. As a young man he often doubted his future as a musician, farming and working briefly in a sawmill, before committing himself to the music business. He stuck with it after Carter's alcohol-accelerated death in 1966 even though his career did not prove lucrative until very late in life when he was featured on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. He won the 2001 Grammy for best male country vocal performance, besting the likes of young commercial country star Tim McGraw, of whom Stanley writes, [W]ouldn't know a real country song if it kicked him in the ass. Stanley's plainspoken narrative is told in a rural diction as though he were sitting in the front seat of an old Ford headed down the mountain for his next show. His story is a comprehensive and endearing cornucopia of authentic mountain music, place, family, friends, rivals, faith, love, life, death and the road. (Oct.)
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Product Description

A giant of American music opens the book on his wrenching professional and personal journeys, paying tribute to the vanishing Appalachian culture that gave him his voice.

He was there at the beginning of bluegrass. Yet his music, forged in the remote hills and hollows of Southwest Virginia, has even deeper roots. In Man of Constant Sorrow, Dr. Ralph Stanley gives a surprisingly candid look back on his long and incredible career as the patriarch of old-time mountain music.

Marked by Dr. Ralph Stanley’s banjo picking, his brother Carter’s guitar playing, and their haunting and distinctive harmonies, the Stanley Brothers began their career in 1946 and blessed the world of bluegrass with hundreds of classic songs, including “White Dove,” “Rank Stranger,” and what has become Dr. Ralph’s signature song, “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Carter died in 1966 after years of alcohol abuse, but Dr. Ralph Stanley carried on and is still at the top of his game, playing to audiences across the country today at age eighty-one. Rarely giving interviews, he now grants fans the book they have been waiting for, filled with frank recollections, from his boyhood of dire poverty in the Appalachian coalfields to his early musical success with his brother, to years of hard traveling on the road with the Clinch Mountain Boys, to the recent, jubilant revival of a sound he helped create.

The story of how a musical art now popular around the world was crafted by two brothers from a dying mountain culture, Man of Constant Sorrow captures a life harmonized with equal measures of tragedy and triumph.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (October 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592404251
• ISBN-13: 978-1592404254
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,176 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Seems good, but..., October 21, 2009

By	Susan Kilby "susankilby" (West Jefferson, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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I bought this book for my dad and read a few parts here and there before I gave it to him. It seems good -- I could hear Dr. Ralph's voice in my head as I read -- but there are no pictures, other than a collage in the front and back covers, and it's the same collage in the front and back! I was hoping for and expecting a lot of photos through the years. It isn't like there is a dearth of pics from which to choose, but maybe they had their reasons?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling reading for the Old-Time music fan., November 27, 2009

By	docsavage98 "docsavage98" (Monticello, KY USA) - See all my reviews

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Having come across bits and pieces of the Ralph Stanley story over the years, it was good to finally get to read it in his own words. I did note that some parts had the language sanitized over previous reported interviews (mostly taking out cussing and putting in milder language)
The book gives an inside look to the world of the 1930's on in the mountains and across the U.S. trying to make a living in a changing genre of music.

I highly recommend it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great view of a unique life, December 27, 2009

By	Peter Wernick "Dr. Banjo" (Niwot, CO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Ralph Stanley's way of speaking is in itself a throwback to an earlier time in a relatively isolated mountain
region of the South. And on top of that, even as a child, people said he was the boy with the 100 year old voice.
In his own words, with good shaping and organizing by Eddie Dean, he tells of his early life, his start in the music
business and many details of all the miles traveled and the people along the way. While he repeatedly says he doesn't like
to talk much, he talks plenty in this book, and in some ways I wish it could have been longer, since there's a lot to
tell in a life as long and far reaching as his has been.

One thing that makes it especially interesting is a look into Ralph's ways as a leader, as a family man, and as a man
who's sometimes called on to make moral judgements. Not everything he says or thinks fits into neat categories, and so
there are surprises and plenty of things to make you think.

If you're a fan of his music as I have been, this book provides a great complement to the songs and sounds. If you're not,
this book will provide a great entry point.