It's always a treat to see Ralph Stanley perform live, especially since the film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and the subsequent Down From the Mountain tour swept him to Grammy award-winning stardom. Those who saw the movie will recall the goosebumps raised by this superb musician's bone-chilling a cappella rendition of "Oh Death"—no one can sing like Dr. Ralph, with his voice that seems to distill all the world's sorrows and carry them straight to your soul.

Born in 1927 near the rugged Virginia-Tennessee border, Ralph and his brother Carter became ground-breaking pioneers who helped re-shape the Anglo-Celtic ballads and fiddle tunes of southeast Appalachia into a bold new string band music now known as bluegrass. Following Carter's death in 1966, Ralph shifted the band's emphasis to an older, sparer mountain style, placing his own stamp on the music with his haunting voice and banjo playing. His music is a uniquely American form: sometimes rough-hewn, sometimes satin-smooth, it is always filled with powerful, raw emotion that seems to have poured straight out of the rocks and runs of his native Virginia mountains.

In six decades of performing, Ralph has set a standard for accomplishment and integrity unequaled in any category of music. He has toured throughout the world, earned dozens of honors (most recently the Living Legend Award from the Library of Congress, the 2002 Grammys for Best Country Male Vocalist Performance and Album of the Year, the the National Endowment for the Arts National Medal of Arts in 2006), and recorded more than 200 albums, including the recent Rounder re-release of his classic Can't You Hear the Mountains Calling.

Ralph's band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, includes his grandson, Nathan Stanley on mandolin, along with lead guitarist James Shelton, Steve Sparkman on banjo, Dewey Brown on fiddle, and Jimmy Cameron on string bass.

Listen to a track from Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys: