Back to Clinch Mountain: Ralph Stanley

"THREE GROUPS shaped bluegrass music," Ricky Skaggs told me recently, "Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, the Stanley Brothers, and Flatt & Scruggs. Everyone who came after them was just following in their footsteps. Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs are the only surviving members of that first generation, and Earl doesn't travel much any more. But Ralph's still out there 150 dates a year; he's the last of the giants still in action."