RALPH STANLEY AT FAIRVIEW

tarbaby

Feeling puny. A cold or flu or something starting up. Spent much of the day in bed until I couldn't stay there any longer. Night before last I out of energy. All day yesterday out of energy, feeling feverish. Today even more fever. Achy feeling all over. Wanting to be lying down, but can't do it any more today. Am forcing this.

Ralph Stanley plays at Fairview Ruritan in Fairview, Virginia, just over the state line off Hwy 89 http://www.bluegrassingalax.com. Saturday night, 7:30, Jan 16, His memoir, MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW, arrived in the mail today. I read the prologue. It was an effort to read with a feverish head, but I had to. Already I love it. The one who put words to paper, Eddie Dean, interviewed Ralph and used his language. Reading it is listening to Ralph Stanley talk. I like Dean's handling of how Ralph talks. It's hillbilly and it's beautiful. It brings Jr to mind a lot because they spoke the same language. It's like listening to Jr talk too. I dripped tears every page, because Ralph Stanley does that to me. Hearing his music, especially seeing him in concert, and on the radio show. I can hardly mention Ralph's name without tears. He hits me way down in the soul. It's that old Primitive Baptist singing with a voice that is unique on this earth.

Ralph talks a lot about Carter, their 20 years together on the road singing all up and down the southern mountains. They've played here at the old Laurel Springs school house, at the Spartan theater and the courtroom in the court house. That came about by a snow. The truck carrying sound equipment got stuck on the way to Sparta and couldn't make it for the show. They needed the speakers for the Spartan stage, and probably not a whole lot of people turned out, it being a big snow. They put on the show acoustic in the courtroom. For the people that turned out, it must have been a show good as it gets.

I have an idea that what I'm feeling is what TarBaby is feeling. He must be feeling like he has a fever all the time with such a high white cell count. He acts like he aches all over, like I do. I can see that it sometimes labors him to move. And he doesn't like being touched. I reach to touch him and he ducks. Eventually, he'll let me touch him, pet him, but he doesn't like it very long. I get the feeling from how he looks when he moves, like every move is an effort, that we must feel alike.

I'm going to let this go. Don't have the energy or the focus to continue. Will attempt to be back tomorrow.