Fred Robbins has added another valuable collection of historic photographs to his online archive.
This latest is a series of images from the 1971 visit to Japan from Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys. This was an iconic edition of the group, featuring Roy Lee Centers on guitar, Jack Cooke on bass, and Curly Ray Cline on fiddle. Dick Freeland of Rebel Records accompanied them on the tour. It was made a short time before the group was expanded to include a pair of Kentucky teenagers, Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley, in Ralph’s lineup.
This selection of photos is especially important as it captures the band on stage, but also in more candid moments. Included are shots of them meeting Japanese dignitaries, interacting with fans, seeing the sights, and jamming with the Japanese grassers they met along the way. Banjophiles will notice that Ralph was playing the American Eagle banjo built by Johnnie Whisnant, much discussed in banjo lore. Several show posters are also displayed.
More than 70 photos from Stanley in 1971 are available on the vast Robbins photo archive site. Not to be missed by anyone with a passion for bluegrass history.
See a few low resolution images below. Many thanks to Akira for making these available.
Charlie Sizemore sent along this lovely tribute to Jack Cooke, who passed away earlier this week on December 1. They became acquainted during Charlie’s tenure with Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, where Jack held down the bass job for nearly 40 years.
Unable to attend Jack’s funeral owing to a nasty bug, Charlie opted to share a few words about “Cookie” here on Bluegrass Today.
As I mentioned in a recent interview, Jack was not the goofy fellow you sometimes saw on stage. He came from the school that valued entertainment – and he was a natural at entertaining. But make no mistake: he was a serious musician.
Tempting as it is to say that he did not get the recognition he deserved, this would not be entirely accurate. Musicians appreciated his talent as much as – if not in the same way – fans loved his antics. For example, David Parmley, one of the best rhythm guitar players to come along during my lifetime, has cited Jack as model in his approach. And his vocal range was something most of us can only dream of having.
I need not say here that Jack was approachable and on the surface anyway easy to get to know. I have little doubt that he knew thousands of people on a first-name basis. But off stage he could be very much the loner. Many a time I’ve gone into a motel restaurant to see him sitting in a corner, puffing a Marlboro, and nursing a cup of coffee. When I’d ask what he was up to, he’d respond: “Sometimes, I just like to sit by myself and think.”
He did almost all the driving when I joined the band. And despite the hundreds of hours I served as his shotgun rider, I didn’t get to know him all that well during this time. He talked very little and in fact would tell me to go ahead and take a nap, that he was fine.
But I did come to know Jack very well, albeit on his terms and in his time-frame. And who I came to know was an honest, decent, humble man with a huge heart. It troubled him immensely when he saw in particular an older person or a child having a difficult time. Maybe because I arguably fell into the latter category, I never felt a hint of resentment from this man who had played guitar and sang with Bill Monroe and hired Del McCoury to play in his band. He never tutored me – this would have been too presumptuous for him – but he was always ready to help me any time I asked.
And he wasn’t a show-off. I saw him play guitar only once and this was fascinating. He could flat play – his approach being similar to Del’s. Hard to explain, but you guitar players understand where I’m coming from. Heavy on the top strings and right in that place in the beat that makes you hear a click. I was playing banjo and he cut a groove so wide I couldn’t have gotten out of time if I tried.
When I tried to compliment him, he brushed it off. “You gotta good right hand,” he interrupted.
Jack was very proud of his Pinecastle recording, Sittin’ On Top Of The World. Tom Riggs and Jim Lauderdale are to be commended for making this happen. He sent one to me as soon as it was released. In fact, we stayed in touch over the years and now I’m glad we did. I called him only recently, for no particular reason, and he ended the conversation as always: “Let me know if you ever need me.” He meant this.
Jack was a big part of my life for a long time. He was my friend and I never took this lightly. But in a sense I write on behalf of thousands when I say that I am also a fan. I loved and respected him.
Dr. Ralph Stanley sent along this brief tribute to his long-time friend and bass player, Jack Cooke, who passed away earlier this week.
“I have nothing but the best to say about Jack. He played with me about 40 years (and with the Stanley Brothers before that). He never missed a show unless he really had to.
He was honest, faithful, and true. He gave me those years of honest and dependable services helping me. He did a good job. I will miss him.”
We have just learned that Jack Cooke, long-time member of Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, passed away last night (12/1) after suffering a massive heart attack. He collapsed at home and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Cooke performed with The Stanley Brothers in the 1950s before going to work for Bill Monroe from 1956-1960. He returned to perform with Ralph Stanley in 1970 not long after Ralph reformed his band following brother Carter’s passing in 1966.
His baritone vocals formed a part of some of the most soulful bluegrass trio and quartet singing ever recorded, blending with such stellar singers as Roy Lee Centers, Keith Whitley, Larry Sparks, Charlie Sizemore and, of course, Dr. Ralph Stanley.
Jack had just recently retired from the band after 38 years as a Clinch Mountain Boy. More information will be posted as soon as we can confirm it.
What a great loss to the bluegrass community. Rest in peace, brother Jack.
UPDATE 3:45 p.m. – Funeral arrangements are being handled by the Hagy & Fawbush Funeral Home in Norton, VA. Though a date and time have not yet been determined, the burial will be held at the Burial Huff-Brummitt cemetery in Wise County.
UPDATE 12/3: The following was posted last night on the Kingsport Times News web site:
Vernon Crawford “Jack” Cooke, 72, died Wednesday at Norton Community Hospital. The family will receive friends from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Hagy & Fawbush Funeral Home. Funeral services will be conducted at 7 p.m. Thursday in the funeral home chapel. Graveside committal services will be conducted at 11 a.m. Friday at the Huff-Brummitt Cemetery. Family and friends will meet at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the funeral home to travel in procession to the cemetery.
Also of note is the fact that Ralph ‘Hank’ Smith, who played lead guitar with The Clinch Mountain Boys during the 1980s, also died on December 1 – 43 years to the day since the death of Carter Stanley. This will be a sad day of remembrance for Ralph.
Pinecastle Records has released three new CD projects this week, each of which we had previewed for you here prior to their street date. They have also launched a new, completely redesigned web site which Andy Evans at Pinecastle tells us has been in the planning stages for several months.
Andy says that they are still making minor site revisions, but expect that all the bugs will be found and fixed in the next few days. He invites everyone to stop by and have a look around.
We just got word from our friends at Pinecastle Records with the street dates for two of their upcoming releases which have been discussed here of late.
Pinecastle Records has two new CD releases that should be of interest to readers of Bluegrass Today.
Jack Cooke has spent the past 37 years working as the bass player with Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys. Before that, he had been a member of both Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys and The Stanley Brothers. Jack has also lent his voice to some of the most memorable bluegrass harmony in the history of the music, providing his soulful baritone to the trios and quartets Dr. Ralph has recorded since he returned to the music in 1970 after brother Carter’s passing.
In this, his first solo project, Sittin’ On Top Of The World, Cooke steps up to the front and offers his take in a set of mostly familiar bluegrass numbers, produced by Jim Lauderdale.
You’ll find a complete track listing, with several audio samples, on the Pinecastle web site.
Also new on Pinecastle is The Best Of David Parmley & Continental Divide. The retrospective CD offers 24 tracks on two audio CDs, with tracks taken from all 5 of their previous Pinecastle releases.
Included are such popular Parmley songs as New Tin Roof, There’ll Always Be A Rocking Chair, Wake Up and Wing And A Prayer.
Track listing and some audio samples are up on the Pinecastle site.
Rebel Records has reissued two Ralph Stanley albums as download only releases on Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Both were originally released in the mid 1970s, during what is widely viewed as the hey day of Dr. Ralph’s post-Carter era, when the band included Keith Whitley, Curly Ray Cline and Jack Cooke.
The first of the two digital reissues is the all-Gospel, Let Me Rest On A Peaceful Mountain, which first came out in 1975, and which features some of the finest a cappella “mountain style” harmony you’ll ever find. The other, Old Home Place, was originally released the following year and includes Whitley singing the classic Sharecropper’s Son, and the cut of If That’s The Way You Feel, later covered (brilliantly) by Ricky Skaggs during his country period.
The album title links above will take you into the iTunes Music Store, but you must have a copy of iTunes software installed on your computer in order to hear the audio samples, or purchase these fine recordings. These two Rebel reissues are only available from iTunes.
We congratulate Rebel Records for making these wonderful albums available again, and hope to see this trend continue. There is a wealth of bluegrass music, out of print from an original LP release, which has never found its way onto CD. Sometimes individual tracks make it into box sets and collections, but we see this option of re-releasing them in toto, but for download only, as an excellent alternative – and one we hope to see repeated many times.
