Appalachia has been a point of soft support for Barack Obama ever since the primaries. Obama is making a push in the region though and has called upon Ralph Stanley to help him out.
To call Ralph Stanley a "legend" in the world of bluegrass is to understate his importance by several degrees of magnitude. He is truly one of the last living legends of the genre (along with Del McCoury and Earl Scruggs). Since this blog is named in the memory of another legendary bluegrass banjo player I couldn't let this endorsement pass without comment.
I have no idea if it will work but it's damn cool that the Obama campaign would think to reach out to Dr. Stanley in an appeal to the good folks in Appalachia. Here's a link to the ad that is playing on the radio across the region.
And for good measure here is classic footage of Ralph performing "The Clinch Mountain Backstep,"
and more recently singing his contribution to the "O Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack, "O Death"
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