Ralph Edmond Stanley was born in Dickinson County in rural southwestern Virginia. His mother bought him a banjo when he was a teenager and taught him to play clawhammer style. He had 11 brothers and sisters and they all played the five stringed banjo for gatherings and events in the neighborhood.

After graduating from high school, he was inducted into the Army and served for more than a year. Upon his return from the service, he joined his brother Carter and formed the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1946. They sang mostly musical traditions of the area using a unique minor-key singing style that was popular in the Primitive Baptist Universalist church and down home harmonies of the Carter Family. The Clinch Mountain Boys sang on local radio stations, performed on Norton, Virginia's WNVA, moved on to Bristol, Virginia and WCYB and started Farm and Fun Time in which they played off and on for more than 12 years.

The Clinch Mountain Boys started writing their own music and recorded with Columbia Records. The Stanley brothers joined King Records in the late 1950s and went to a more harmonious style of music, which is the style they are best known for today. Ralph's brother Carter died in 1966, and with the urging of his fans, Ralph decided to go it alone. He met and hired Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitney and later his son, Ralph Stanley, Jr., became lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the Clinch Mountain Boys. Ralph was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN in 1976 and was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1992 and again in 2000 for his solo work. He was also inducted into the Grand Ole Opry Hall of Fame and awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2006, the nation's highest honor for artistic excellence.

Alison Krauss is famous as a soprano vocalist, fiddler, bluegrass-country singer, and viola player. She is known as an angelic soprano with little or no vibrano. She is also the producer and bandleader. She was born in 197l in Illinois. She was very young when she entered the music industry, which included studying classical violin at five years of age. She won local contests by the age of ten. She recorded for the first time at age fourteen and continues to play with a band called Union Station. Their first album as a group was released in 1989.

Krauss wrote some of her early work including "Every Time You Say Goodbye," which was released in 1992. This is a favorite yet today.
Her first Grammy Award was for the single "Steel Rails." She won her second Grammy Award that same year. At the age of twenty-one she joined the Grand Ole Opry.

She has released eleven albums and has been on many soundtracks. In all, she has won twenty-seven Grammy Awards. She is now the most awarded female artist in Grammy history and is the second most awarded artist overall in Grammy history. She continues to be a favorite bluegrass country singer and fiddler. In the mid 1980's she signed with Rounder records, with whom she continues to record. Her popularity has helped to renew interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Some have titled her band (AKUS) as the brightest band around.

There are a few groups of musicians that call themselves Smokey Mountain Boys. One group from North Carolina sings bluegrass gospel music. They started around the 1990s and have been enjoyed through the whole country. They use the famous Dobro guitar which is a Hawaiian guitar popular with country music players. The group consists of five players who also sing. A couple of their songs are "Prayer Ground," "Mary's Little Lamb," and "Good Morning Lord."

Another group that was formed in Tennessee began with the name Crazy Tennessee Crackerjacks in 1933. This group also used the Dobro guitar for its distinctive sound to infuse their mountain music. Roy Acuff was the founder and in 1938, he changed the name to Smokey Mountain Boys. The group released "Wabash Cannonball" and "The Great Speckled Bird," which were top hits. This group played on the Grand Ole Opry and became regulars there. They were highly respected for the down home music they created. In the 1940s, producers from Hollywood asked them to appear in several movies. "O, My Darling Clementine" and "Night Train to Memphis" were a couple of the movies they appeared in. In some rating polls, this band was rated above Frank Sinatra and they had a segment in a radio show for a few years.

The leader of the group, Roy Acuff, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame while he was still living and that was a first. He was quite old by the 1970s and 1980s, but he still was asked to appear on the Grand Ole Opry, which he did. His group's unique style has made the Smokey Mountain Boys a legend.

Ralph Edmond Stanley was born in 1927. He was raised, and still lives in, the rural town of McClure, Virginia. When Ralph was 13 years old his father, who was a moonshiner, abandoned his family. He and his older brother Carter were now the sole responsibility of his mother.

Ralph didn’t grow up around music with the exception of church music. His father played no instruments, but his mother had played a five-stringed banjo. There were, however, no instruments in the house and little money to buy one. His aunt owned a banjo she wanted to sell so his mother bought it for him by trading groceries from their store until the required $5.00 was paid. She taught Ralph, now age 15, and his brother Carter how to play.

The brothers did a short stint in the Army but following their discharge decided to form their own band. Their music had strong influence of the true Appalachian music sound with country, bluegrass and a mixture of gospel flavors. They played on radio stations from West Virginia to North Carolina and recorded their music along the way. Ralph decided, instead of being a veterinarian as he’d planned, his destiny was music. His band traveled to Europe in 1966 just before Carter’s death at the young age of 41.

After his brothers’ death, Ralph hired another lead singer and steered his music back to the traditional mountain sounds including church style a capella quartet music. His hard work and blue-grass consistency has earned him several Grammys, one of which he received after playing music in the movie, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" He also has the distinction of being the first person in the 21st century to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.

"O Brother Where Art Thou" celebrates its 10th anniversary this year in December. The movie stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as three convicts who escape from jail in the 1930’s. Based on Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey,” these three men run around looking for hidden treasure and are pursued by a local policeman. The movie also stars John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Charles Durning, and Chris Thomas King, as well as many other famous Hollywood stars.

This movie became a hit not only for its cast of stars, but also for its soundtrack. While trying to find a treasure worth $1.2 million that George Clooney’s character, Everett, claims to have buried, the group ends up becoming a singing group. They name themselves the Soggy Bottom Boys after two of the three characters have to sing with wet clothes on after being baptized in a river. The soundtrack to the movie becomes one of the most popular aspects of the movie, alongside the comedy. The Soggy Bottom Boys end up recording their famous song, “Man of Constant Sorrow,” and while the characters wanted to use the cover of a music group to continue finding their treasure, their song ends up becoming famous.

By the end of the movie, it is discovered that there was never any treasure, that Everett said there was so that he could escape and get back to his wife, who is planning on remarrying. The group encounters a bank robber, the Ku Klux Klan, a bible salesman, and a governor. This movie was produced by the Coen brothers, delivers great comedy along with music that you will be tapping your feet to while watching.