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.










