Legendary banjo player and singer Ralph Stanley is one of the Founding Fathers of bluegrass. He’s been on the bluegrass road since 1946, first as the younger half of the Stanley Brothers and, since 1967, as the leader of Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys, among the most important traditionally oriented bands in bluegrass history. Stanley has influenced generations of musicians with his lonesome mountain tenor voice, distinctive banjo picking and several original songs that have become bluegrass standards. He’s a member of the Bluegrass Hall of Honor and has received both a National Heritage Fellowship and the National Medal of the Arts. Thanks to O Brother, Where Art Thou, Stanley won his first Grammy Award—for Best Male Country Vocal Performance—in 2001 at the age of 74. The Clinch Mountain Boys include Steve Sparkman (banjo), James Alan Shelton (guitar), Jack Cooke (bass) and Stanley’s son, Ralph Stanley II (guitar and lead vocals), and grandson, Nathan Stanley (mandolin).