Comments on: Your Take: Second Chances

By: Arlene

Arlene — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:29:50 +0000

I’m deferring to the professionals here but in my own defense, I don’t think I ever criticized Ken. I cited him to support my view that a working musician could have a comeback or second chance even if he or she had consistently been recording or creating music all along, if/when he or she returns to much greater prominence. But again– “uncle.”

By: Barry Mazor

Barry Mazor — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:15:49 +0000

It’s the difference between a “comeback” and audience growth or resurgence. But in the end any artist is dang lucky to experience any of those!

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:41:39 +0000

I think JNL wrongly mixes together a couple of different things there. As Barry suggests, the ones that are new are the ones from the realm familiar to folks more outside the bluegrass world than of it – Letterman and so forth – while within that world, he’d been touring coast to coast (and internationally) for many years, was selling more records than in the past, etc. He hadn’t been on Letterman before (hence no “comeback”), while he’d been playing 150 dates (and more) all along (also hence no “comeback”).

If you can show me something similar with respect to Elvis and Cash – that their comebacks in fact weren’t – then I will cheerfully admit that yes, Ken was wrong ;-).

By: Barry Mazor

Barry Mazor — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 04:03:08 +0000

The misconception is that if those audiences and related pubs are not talking about him (Ralph S, fin this case) he’s “forgotten” or “not doing anything.” which is provincial of THEM. All things get judged by the perception of the audience at hand, and as different as the New Yorker, Spin and OA audiences were , just so many reading any of them would have been up on what’s going on in bluegrass. The O Bro phenomenon gave them the momentary delusion that they did –since they were going, not for the first or last time, for the “novelty.” They liked Ralph fine for awhile, and told us how unearthly he sounded because he was old. Which was more or less the same way he sounded when he was young.

By: Arlene

Arlene — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 02:40:14 +0000

Jon- A popular, but perhaps unwarranted, public perception persists that O Brother constitued a major comeback for Ralph Stanley. For example:

Mon., Oct. 23, 2006
John Nova Lomax
The Houston Press

“Sure, there have been unlikelier comebacks, but not many. Not since Lightnin’ “Hopkins and Mississippi John Hurt were rediscovered in the 1960s has an artist’s ascent out of relative obscurity been more dramatic than Ralph Stanley’s rocket shot from bluegrass festival elder statesman to country music chart-topper.

Over the course of the past year, the 76-year-old has been profiled in The New Yorker, Spin and the Oxford American. His “O Death” and “Angel Band” (with his late brother Carter) were vital contributions to the platinum-selling O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, which won the CMA award for Album of the Year. He’s been the subject of numerous documentaries. His key chain jangles with keys to cities from coast to coast. He’s done Letterman. He found the time to release the follow-up documentary to O Brother (Down from the Mountain)and the Clinch Mountain Sweethearts duet CD. And oh yeah, at an age when most folks have settled into the front-porch rocking chair, Stanley has crisscrossed the country to play about 150 gigs.”

By: BRUCE

BRUCE — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:03:05 +0000

Rick,

Here’s hoping for Sweeney as well. Can’t quite understand why momentum didn’t build for her. She has just enough distinctiveness to separate her from the other “barbie-doll sounds-like-the-other” clones.”

Same can be said for Ashton Shepherd.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:46:33 +0000

Compared to Ralph’s pretty much straight upward line career from at least the late 80s up 2001 (O Brother), both Presley and Cash did, indeed, come back from lower points. Ken refers to them both that way, and it’s not hard to find others who see it that way, too; for instance, Elvis’ 1968 NBC special is widely referred to as his “Comeback Special,” while Cash’s American Recordings is an entry in Time magazine’s 2008 multi-genre list, “Top 10 Comeback Albums.”

A more apt “second chance” example in the bluegrass world than Ralph would be IIIrd Tyme Out, whose success in the past 3 or so years comes after a stretch of difficulties that included fewer awards, less coverage and airplay, etc. , which in turn followed their big success in the mid-late 90s. Things like this Cracker Barrel album are a real second chance for them, and it’s very well deserved.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:28:29 +0000

I’m really hoping Ashley Monroe’s “Like a Rose” album sells well due to her now being a Pistol Annie so she can get some of the respect her “Satisfied” album deserved back in 2006.

I’m also hoping Sunny Sweeney comes up with another single that can hit the Top 10 like “From A Table Away” so she doesn’t go down in history as a “one hit wonder” on Top 40 Country Radio.

By: Arlene

Arlene — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:51:03 +0000

I don’t know– I’m not sure it would be accurate to suggest that Johnny Cash or Elvis had ever “been away,” yet both are mentioned prominently in Ken’s article about second chances; both had continued to record and it is my impression that when they chose to perform live, both remained significant concert draws.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:47:13 +0000

O Brother certainly led to more exposure for Ralph, but I think the point about “second chances” here relates to flagging careers, uncertain futures, career “revitalization” and comebacks. But those terms don’t describe Ralph during the years preceding O Brother’s release; O Brother wasn’t a comeback for him, because he hadn’t been away.