Ralph Berrier Archives - Bluegrass Today

Sterling Belcher RIP

We are sorry to report that festival promoter Sterling Belcher passed away on Saturday (1/30). Sterling managed the Festival In The Pines in Rocky Mt, VA for the past 30 years, and was father-in-law to bluegrass entertainer Larry Stephenson, who is married to Sterling’s daughter, Dreama.

We had posted about Sterling’s health problems when they resurfaced in the summer of 2009. To mark his passing, The Roanoke Times has published both an obituary and a feature article by Ralph Berrier on Belcher.

From Berrier’s piece…

Sterling Belcher ran a bluegrass festival for 30 years before he got up the nerve to sing on the stage.

As cancer whittled away his body, Belcher sang “The Little Log Cabin in the Lane” last May during Festival in the Pines, the three-day bluegrass event Belcher founded and operated at his tree-rimmed campground in Rocky Mount. After he finished the song, he told the crowd he hoped to see them next year, but that he didn’t know what plans the Lord had for him.

“You ain’t going nowhere, Sterling!” some in the crowd hollered at him. “You’re too ornery!”

His health only worsened, however, and Belcher died Saturday at age 71 after battling prostate cancer and strokes for much of the past four years. The family had already decided to cancel this year’s festival because of Belcher’s declining health.

Bluegrass Today expresses our condolences to the Belcher and Stephenson families.

If Trouble Don’t Kill Me

Along with the Ralph Stanley autobiography and the Tony Rice book, another bluegrass-related tome worthy of your attention as you consider Christmas gift lists is If Trouble Don’t Kill Me by Ralph Berrier. The book tells the story of the Hall Twins (Clayton and Saford Hall), who were popular “hillbilly” entertainers in western Virginia and North Carolina in the 1930s.

Berrier is both the grandson of Clayton Hall, and a master storyteller, taking this far beyond a family history or artist biography. While recalling the life of the twins, Ralph also evokes a palpable vision of rural mountain poverty in the Appalachian region prior to WWII, something unknown in the US today to even the poorest of the poor.

Trouble would be a good read for anyone interested in the pre-bluegrass history of mountain music, or who just enjoys a great story, well-told.

Berrier will be a guest on WBRF FM on Saturday evening to talk about the book, and play some old time music with host Judith Burnette. The show airs from Galax, VA on 98.1 FM, and streams live over the Internet. Check it out at 7:30 p.m. (EST) online.

There is also a nice video overview of the book on YouTube.

You can find more details on If Trouble Don’t Kill Me at www.ralphberrier.com.

UPDATE 12/6: Oops… It turns out that Ralph’s appearance on WBRF was preempted by a Wake Forest basketball game on Saturday evening. It has been rescheduled for 12/11 at 7:30 p.m.

If Trouble Don’t Kill Me – the Hall twins

I’ll admit I have a soft spot for biographies about the first half of the 20th century, especially those that remind us of how much easier our lives are in the present day. The recent Ralph Stanley autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times, was a gem in this genre, mixing a first-hand history of a pair of bluegrass legends with an intensely personal account of growing up in rural, mountain poverty in the 1930s.

Another book that promises a look at these sames times and places is If Trouble Don’t Kill Me, due August 10 from Crown, a Random House imprint.It was written by Ralph Berrier, Jr., a features writer for my hometown paper, The Roanoke Times. Ralph is also an old time musician, and very knowledgeable about the music and history of the Appalachian region where he, and his family have lived for generations.

Berrier took a sabbatical from the paper to pull the book together, which tells the story of a pair of pickers that came before him.

“The book is a memoir about my grandfather, Clayton Hall, and his twin brother, Saford. Briefly put, the brothers grew up in the hardscrabble foothills of Patrick County, where they learned to play music and sing from their mother. They almost made it big with Roy Hall and His Blue Ridge Entertainers — until a little thing called World War II broke up the band. Saford fought from Africa to Europe, Clayton fought in the Pacific until the bitter end.

They never got their career back on track after the war, and the story reveals how they dealt with the curveballs fate threw at them. Love, war, country music — what’s not to like?”

Ralph has a number of photos and some audio clips from the Hall twins on his web site, including this classic bit.

The Hall Twins: [http://ralphberrier.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/20-sweetheart0.mp3]

This is one I’ll be looking forward to reading in the fall.