Lonesome Melodies: The Lives and Music of the Stanley Brothers (American Made Music)
Two of the most influential first-generation bluegrass musicians, Carter and Ralph Stanley, while an excellent rhythm guitarist and banjoist, respectively, may be the most admired singers of the style. Ralph’s testimony about his career, Man of Constant Sorrow (2009), is a great autobiography but understandably a personal document. Johnson’s account of the brothers’ 20-year shared career, terminated by Carter’s 1966 death, is a scholarly but unstuffy complement to Ralph’s testimony. Less biographical than historical, it accounts for how the brothers got started in music, developed as professionals, and presented their music in concert and on records. The venues they used (radio, records, touring, and, finally, dedicated bluegrass festivals), the revolving cast of other musicians who constituted their band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, and the songs selected for shows and records—Johnson delves deeply into these to evoke the extraordinarily hectic, meagerly paying professional lives they led while marrying, making families, moving house, and pursuing the rest of a normal existence. It’s safe to say that staunch bluegrass fans will love this book. --Ray Olson