Bluegrass Nights feat. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys w/The Grascals

Contrasts abound in the bill that closes this season’s Bluegrass At The Ryman series, though perhaps not as many as you’d expect. There’s age, of course, and style: Stanley created a unique “old-time mountain music” that served him well for nearly 40 years, while IBMA Entertainers of the Year The Grascals could serve as the poster child for a distinctively Nashvillian approach. But there are congruences too. Despite his pervasive loyalty to the Old Dominion, the Virginia patriarch is a media-savvy Grand Ole Opry member with a strong appeal to youthful hipsters, while the newer group, as their meaty new album Keep On Walkin’ attests, have strong home turf loyalties and more than a hint of nostalgia, discernible in the reliance on material written by Boys From Indiana genius Aubrey Holt—not to mention Harley Allen and Jamie Johnson’s forthright paean, “Indiana.” In the end, both acts—each supremely entertaining in its own way—represent varying degrees of adherence to the music’s past and dedication to its future.
Thu., July 31, 7:30 p.m., 2008