ROUNDTRIP TO CLINTWOOD

ralph stanley museum



Three hours on the road to Clintwood, Virginia, deep in the Clinch Mountains, slight rain, beautiful landscape, late November, trees largely bare, coal hauling trucks everywhere, big trucks. I misremembered the highway, I thought, believing last time I drove 72 in May the road had no white or yellow lines. This time it had the lines. I know my memory is a mess, but this didn't seem right. Later, talking with Pam Morris in the museum, she suggested the road might have been paved recently, the road takes a lot of wear from the big trucks. I did have to stop for road work once on that trip. Evidently it had just been repaved and the lines not yet put down. It was an entirely different road with the lines on it. I did notice a few places that were familiar from last time, but it never seemed right. I asked Richard Morris at the desk if there are two 72s. No, just one. It was a peculiar feeling.



I'd far rather drive into the Clinch Mountains by the old road instead of 4-lane. It turns back on itself several times, not just a few. Some of the trucks are so long they have to take the whole road to make those turns. I felt like it was ON when I left the 4-lane at Coeburn, where I think Jim and Jesse McReynolds are from, turning onto hwy 72, going deep into the mountains, through the mountains where you still can see rusted junk cars and pickups in yards, even a few houses that resemble shacks, but not many. The road is a mountain road from one end to the other. My heart expanded driving the mountain highway to Clintwood, the road Ralph and Carter, the Stanley Brothers, took to Bristol every day for years, and their weekend shows all over the mountains.



The Stanley Brothers never caught on much outside the mountains. Their only hit outside the mountains was a song they made up from a joke in the recording studio with one more track to come up with. How Far To Little Rock. It's good hillbilly humor, but the listeners outside the mountains evidently didn't connect with their music, which is particularly mountain music. They were so mountain, they were not very accessible outside the mountains, like the Laurel Fork Travelers and Tommy Jarrell. It's a curiosity to me that the Stanley Brothers never connected with listeners outside the mountains, but for musicians. For one thing, they were excellent musicians and pop music doesn't often reward excellence. Richard, at the museum, told me that somebody asked Dr Ralph why he didn't move to Nashville. His answer, I wasn't born in Nashville.



Dr Ralph was not at the museum today, which I felt a bit balanced about; glad on the one hand and disappointed on the other hand, each about the same degree, and neither hardly even an emotion. I went the way I approach about everything in this time of the life, going with God's will, whatever that may be. On the road, thinking about it, I had no problem leaving it to whatever happens. I didn't feel like it was necessary to meet Ralph Stanley. I don't go after autographs, but I went after his in my copy of his book. I was comfortable either way. It's best he wasn't there, because I'd have choked up. I know it. My purpose in the trip was to leave the painting with them, and that was it. I told Pam I claim no rights. From the moment I handed it to them, it's property of the museum, no strings attached. It was my love gift to the Stanley museum. It was conceived in there, and I felt like today I gave it birth.



First thing Pam noted while looking at it was Steve Sparkman, Ralph's banjo picker who played Stanley style, was leaving the band today. She saw right away it had Ralph with the banjo, not Sparkman. I was happy to see that they were happy to have it in the museum. Pam and Richard agreed right off it belonged in the small room painted white with the old-time church benches where visitors watch a video of the Stanleys. I didn't mention that room was my pick for where I'd like to see it, because I didn't feel like it was my place to be arranging a museum. But it felt good to get my wish without expressing it. A place on the wall in there was waiting for it.



I was especially happy they both thought it favored him well. I told Pam it had already had its compliment that satisfied me such that I feel like I touched the star I was reaching for. It was when Joe Edwards said, 'I can hear them playing.' That was it. I don't need any more feedback. That one told me it did what I set out to do, that nebulous something unnameable I attempted to breathe into it that would make somebody looking at it feel like they can hear the music. Joe's comment told me it was worth giving to the museum. I could only give them my very best, and believe I reached my best in it.



Pam took me to their community center, a big room with a lot of tables, chairs upside down on the tables. It was an interesting maze to walk through looking at 8 paintings a woman who lives there painted on a commission for the walls in the room. Every one was beautiful as beautiful gets. You could study one for an hour easily and never get tired of looking at it, put up a tent and live in it for awhile. The colors, the compositions, the content, every one I felt a major WoW standing in front of it. Her name is Ellen Elmes. She painted a mural on a big public wall downtown Clintwood, in sight of the museum. I felt immensely honored to be in her artistic company. Honored is how I felt all the way home. It's a deeply honored feeling, honored within, like I've done something worth doing that goes to the good for all concerned.



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PAINTING RALPH STANLEY

ralph stanley & the clinch mountain boys

Almost at the end of August, the month when the weather starts to change from summer to fall, the first nights in the 50s last week. The weather during the day has been pleasant. It's been a mild summer. It steadily rose in heat level and is now steadily moving downward. Last winter did that way too, a steady getting colder, then a steady getting less cold. Cold of winter used to come in waves and the warm of summer did too. Those waves of warm and cold have evened out now to just a steady rise and a steady decline. A bit of fog in the last week of August, suggesting snow maybe in March. We'll see.

Finally have come close enough to the end of the Ralph Stanley painting to let you see it. I ought to be ashamed to show it like it is. The lighting is as bad as it can be, glaring on the picture. For me, it was a study in black and white. In this picture it's a study in glare. The 3 suits are black. Ralph's shirt is purple and black. All that is left is a touch here, a touch there. I'll go over the whole thing now looking for little details to touch in, fix this, fix that. A little stripe of white down his banjo strap reflecting the stage lights. I think I've suggested frets and strings about as much as I'm going to. A couple of places yet to suggest strings. I'll fuss with it til it's as close to what I want it to be as I'm able to get it. I'm satisfied it favors Stanley enough that he wouldn't be ashamed of the likeness.

In the painting itself is several black heads across the bottom like the heads in the audience in front of where you're sitting. The pictures that showed that had such bad glare it would be pointless to show them. This one is the only one the glare wasn't bad on. It was 9:30 taking the pictures with indoor light and not much attention paid to making it just right. This is ok. Wanted to show you what I've been at for the last months. It was conceived in May. Finished end of August. I've been lazy and not very motivated. I want to make a lot of paintings of mountain musicians. But sometimes I think up all kinds of things to do to keep from painting. Sometimes it's too frightening a thing to approach. When the time came to finish the faces, I was scared. It's a frightening thing to paint somebody's face so you can recognize who it is. Plus, I want a certain seeming of life in the figures, and that's really scary to approach. I dreaded the faces for weeks. Studied them and looked at how to approach them, bright light on their faces and shadows from the hats on their faces. It was an interesting challenge painting Ralph's face in two different colors, yin/yang.

I'm not satisfied now that I look at it almost finished. Knew I wouldn't be. Never am. I see everything wrong with it. When other people look at it they don't see any of that. It's like a musician hitting the wrong note. He's the only one notices. Scott Freeman when he is teaching stresses to the beginners not to twist up your face when you hit a wrong note. You're the only one who will notice; don't give it away. So I don't tell where my flaws are in the pictures. After several years I forget where they are and never see them again. It takes a little while in time before I can see something I've painted with a fresh eye that doesn't remember all that's wrong with it.

Back in May I drove to Clintwood, Virginia, to visit the Ralph Stanley Museum. It was what I wanted it to be. Whoever put it together did a beautiful job of it from conception to the last detail. Videos going of Carter and Ralph. Instruments on the walls. It's comfortable inside. It would be a comfortable place to stay awhile, going around listening to all the sample music in various places where you can pick maybe 3 songs from a given period. A lot of pictures. I noticed there were no paintings of Ralph in the place. Seemed like it needed a painting of him. I stood still entertaining the thought. Been wanting to paint Ralph Stanley for some time, believed I could make something they (curator, Ralph, Ralph's wife, everyone concerned) would like to have in there. Ralph Stanley has given me so many hours of joy listening to his music, his art form, at home, at concerts, playing him on the radio to people that love him, I want to give him, in turn, a thank-you gift of my art form to share with his fans.

PILGRIMAGE

richard morris


At 8:45 this morning I set out on the highway for Clintwood, Virginia, coal mining country near the Kentucky border in Dickenson County. Clinch Mountain country. Arrived at noon. Road work along the way probably set timing back an hour. I reckoned it would take about 2.5 hours, and it might have without all the times of stopping so long I turn the motor off and leave the radio going. There were times in the mountains there was no radio reception. Though I found a good one, 88.7 FM WMMT Whitesburg, Kentucky. All the time I was listening they were playing early bluegrass, Reno & Smiley, Monroe, Stanleys, Hi-Lo Brown. The dj's name was Mrs. Bluegrass. She played some good music. It felt good driving in the Clinch Mountains hearing bluegrass of my favorite period of bluegrass. Jim & Jesse are from that area. On the way to Clintwood, I took the old highway 72 instead of the 4-lane from Coeburn. I loved it. It twists and turns until you think you're about to tie a knot. Great big trucks. Narrow road.



This was the old road Ralph and Carter drove every day to Bristol and back to play the lunchtime radio show in their beginning. It was like that all the way to Bristol. All their driving to shows up and down the mountains was on roads as crooked as a running blacksnake. The mountains are walls either side of the highway, nearly straight up. The trees were full of fresh leaves everywhere. I came back by the 4-lane and regretted it. The longest Road Work wait of all. I'm glad I took 72, because it was the only road that gave the feeling of riding with the mountains. It gave me the experience of the Clinch Mountains, the legendary mountains of the Carter Family and Stanley Brothers. The other roads go through the mountains like they're not there. I thought of Ralph and Carter with their tires that used innertubes, changing flats by the side of the road at night. Years and years of driving serious mountain roads on weekends. I'd say by now Ralph is happy to have a bus and somebody else driving.



The man whose voice is these mountains knows these mountains well from all the years of mountain highways and being embraced by mountain people for the Stanley Brothers music that came out of the soul of these mountains. Ralph Stanley is as much a soul singer as Aretha Franklin. Carter too. Her soul came out of the church she grew up in. Ralph's soul came out of the mountain Primitive Baptist, which, where white soul is concerned, is soulful as it gets. A different culture, a different expression of soul. Aretha Franklin never brought me to tears like Ralph and Carter have. No music has brought me to tears like the Stanleys and the Carter Family. Years ago, the first time I heard Yasha Heifitz play Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, I laid down on the couch and wept. Essentially, it's mountain music. Only mountain music causes me to weep. It's so incredibly beautiful to my heart it fills me with an overflowing fullness my eyes well up and that's it. Feeling is what it's about in mountain music and Ralph Stanley is the master of singing with feeling like Heifitz can play a fiddle with feeling. Both have this special gift that sets them apart from all others. Tommy Jarrell has it too in his plain manner.



Clintwood, Virginia, is not between here and anywhere else. It's not a place to stop and see on the way to someplace. I decided if I'm going to see the Ralph Stanley Museum it will have to be a trip specifically for that. A day on the road in mountains I've not yet experienced. I like the road to Marion and I like 81 to Abingdon, and from Abingdon on it was alternate 58 to Coeburn where I turned onto real mountain highway, thinking about Ralph and Carter driving this road at least twice a day for a lot of years. By the time I reached Clintwood, I was ready. I walked up the steps to the door feeling this is really special. Big Southern manse of a house with enormous columns that sits up from the road on a rise, beautifully kept.



Inside, I met Richard Morris, the volunteer on duty. We talked for a long time about "Doc." He told me of how he's come to know Ralph since working with the museum and has the same respect for Ralph Stanley I can say I have for Jr Maxwell. A kind of awe of a man who has lived a full life well. I mentioned I remind myself from time to time Ralph Stanley is just a man. Richard said, He is, he's just a man. He told me a bit about Doc's car collection, his wife Jimmie, who drives a Jaguar and she's still a country girl. He told of the time Doc's white mule he thought the world of bit him on the shoulder. He sold it. I told him that all my listeners of the Saturday morning radio show love Ralph Stanley. Every once in awhile I have a Ralph Stanley or Stanley Brothers day. If this coming Saturday wasn't going to be Green Mountain Boys day, it would be Ralph Stanley. I'll get him in a week or 2. But I have to share GMB with my listeners now. A lot of them remember the band.



In the museum is a small room reminiscent of old-time church house with benches and a tv of Ralph Stanley talking. Displays of banjos and fiddles and guitars. Curly Ray Cline's fiddle was there. And his shoes. Instruments from the Clinch Mountain Boys on the walls. Album covers, photographs, videos of Ralph and Carter, little plug-in places to listen to individual songs. The one I chose to hear was The Girl From The Greenbriar Shore. Beautiful song. They all are. I've never heard a song by Ralph or Carter I didn't love as much as I love all the rest. They're all equal to me. When my friends from Georgia were here, I took them to Fairview Ruritan to see The Clinch Mountain Boys. The concert was Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys twice. Two shows, one after the other. When it was over, Judy wanted to buy a cd. Looking at the big selection they had, she asked me which one was the best. I said, They're all the best. I wasn't kidding. Like at the radio station, it doesn't matter what I pick to play by Ralph Stanley. All of it is good.



Once I was asked what's the best bluegrass song ever written. A question it seems to me is like asking which---it's so absurd, it's not even a question. A test question. I couldn't take it seriously, yet at the same time it made me review songs I liked the best. The best can only be answered according to the given individual. Ask a hundred people and you'll get a hundred different titles with some inevitable overlap. I said, White Dove. It just came to mind as my own particular favorite bluegrass song. Best? Who cares? When Carter sings it and when Ralph sings it, it lives, it's alive. And it's mountain as it gets.



I drove away from Clintwood listening to Mrs. Bluegrass playing me the right music for what I was feeling. I've just now asked myself why it was important that I visit the museum. I've wanted to for some years. Waiting for a good weather day when I have no schedules, when the car is in tune, fresh oil and a full tank. All of it coincided on my birthday. I give myself a birthday present every year. Today's pilgrimage was my happy birthday to me. And a good day it was. It's been quite a lot of years since I've driven the highways of SW Virginia. It's beautiful country. Best of all was Hwy 72, that Clinch Mountain road. Richard, pictured above, said he grew up on that road half way between Coeburn and Clintwood.



Still, I haven't addressed why it's important. Can't name it. It's like the time in the modern art museum in Zurich, Switzerland, I saw a marble sculpture by a favorite artist of mine, Jean Arp, white marble, called Cloud. It's absolutely against the rules in such a museum to touch anything but the floor. But I had to do it. With the tip of my finger for a split second, just enough to make contact. I knew I was doing no harm, only breaking a rule---I'm an American. We break rules. It was the same impulse, to make symbolic contact with an artist I appreciate way high up.



Website: http://www.ralphstanleymuseum.com/