Ralph Stanley Quotes

I would have quit before I went rock-n-roll. I know one way, and that's natural, and when I can't make it, I'll come home and stay. I believe in my music.

You know, if you use instrument, why, you have to stay on perfect time - timing. And if you do a cappella - I'm so bad, just wonder, you know, maybe I'll sing one verse this way and one verse another. And if you're doing it a capella, you don't have to keep any time. You can just go out as far as you want to with it.

I'm a member of the Primitive Baptist Church, and they will buy every CD that I have released, but they don't me just to bring the instruments much into the church.

My mother played a little bit of the old time clawhammer. She tuned the banjo up and picked one tune for me, and it just become natural to me. When she picked it, I just started and picked it, too.

I always enjoyed playing around Washington, because we always have a good crowd. I've never had a bad crowd in this vicinity from here [Alexandria], up to Washington and on to right around Baltimore. They've been some good fans.

I guess the first time I played around Washington, D.C. was at a place called The Famous. That was the first place I played, I believe.

I think - I really think my voice has gotten better in the last two or three years. I don't know why. I've been doing a lot of - a lot more lead singing, and everybody tells me that my voice was better than ever and I agree with them. Maybe I've learned to do more with it. I don't know what.

I've done it all. I'm thankful and proud of what I've accomplished in my life. I hope to keep doing it.

No pleasure here on Earth I find. For in this world, I'm bound to ramble.

I don't listen to the radio too much, but usually I listen to Stanley Brothers and Ralph Stanley more than I do anybody!

I live about six miles from where I was born and raised.

I have plenty of good friends that I think the world of - and Bob [Dylan] is one of them, and I like his music - but with some others ... their music I just don't care too much about all of it. Some of it I like.

My father was a logger. He cut timber and hauled it out of the woods and had a sawmill. They sawed it into lumber. And, you know, the mines needed things they call timbers and collars and so forth, and they used collars on the railroad track that they put the rails on. And he - that was his occupation, just a sawmill man and a logger.

Speaking of WAMU, [bluegrass and old time music DJ] Ray Davis did a lot of work there. I've know Ray, I guess for 50 years - 40, or 50 years. And, he plays a lot of my records.

I don't - I don't like that style, myself. I never did like Elvis's singing, but there was millions that did.

I think Bob [Dylan] told me that he turned down twenty interviews that year, and I was the only one that he sat down and did an interview with. And, he said that it was one of his highlights, and it was one of my highlights. And, I was very glad to talk with Bob. I found out that he was a good fan of mine, and that tickled me.

My first banjo? My mother's sister, my aunt, lived about a mile from where we did, and she raised some hogs. And she had - her - the hog - the mother - they called the mother a sow - of a hog. And she had some pigs. Well, the pigs were real pretty, and I was going to high school and I was taking agriculture in school. And I sort of got a notion that I'd like to do that, raise some hogs. And so my aunt had this old banjo, and my mother told me, said, which do you want, the pig or a banjo? And each one of them's $5 each. I said, I'll just take the banjo.

I like for it to be mountain music or old-time country music or traditional bluegrass. Either one will fit me. It's traditional, basically.