Thanks to Richard Thompson, who alerted us to this interview with Wilma Lee Cooper which ran last month on WBIR-TV in Knoxville, TN. At 88 years old, Wilma Lee is no longer active in the music world, particularly following her stroke in 2001, but is living comfortably near Knoxville.

LaSaundra Brown of WBIR spoke with Ms. Cooper and her caregiver, Margaret Akins, for a piece designed to answer the question, “Whatever happened to Wilma Lee Cooper?” It includes a brief overview of her career, and nicely captures the feisty spirit that propelled Cooper to knock down barriers for female artists in country music, allowing for the opportunities that some of today’s ladies in the biz may take for granted.

Ralph Stanley will sit with David Letterman tonight (11/6) to discuss his autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times.

Letterman has dubbed this week as Country Music Week on The Late Show, with musical performances each night from prominent Nashville entertainers. Stanley will close out this theme week talking about his very personal book, written with Eddie Dean. It covers Ralph’s life from early childhood with his brother, Carter, through their time together as The Stanley Brothers, and his own musical career after Carter’s passing in 1966.

We’ll have more to say about this deeply moving autobiography soon.

The Late Show airs on CBS television at 11:35 p.m. (ET/PT).

UPDATE 10:30 a.m. – We just got an update from Norma Morris, of Morris Public Relations, who handles publicity for Ralph Stanley:

“Letterman will mention the book, open it up and make some comments, but Ralph will not have the opportunity to sit down and discuss it. So he will perform one song, Room at the Top of the Stairs. The Letterman people have been just great.”

Mountain Heart sent along a few photos of pre-race activities at Martinsville Speedway, where the guys will soon be singing the National Anthem before the start of today’s (10/25) NASCAR TUMS Fast Relief 500.

The race starts at 1:30 p.m. (EDT), and they are scheduled to sing at roughly 1:25. Coverage is on ABC television.

We’ll post any other photos as soon as we get them.

Monday night fans and musicians filled the Grand Ole Opry house in Nashville to help Rounder Records celebrate forty years in the record business. I really feel like we did help them, because the show was not only a concert, but a television taping. That meant that we had to do a lot of extra clapping and look pretty for the camera’s audience shots. It also meant that everything took longer than it would have in a typical live show, especially resetting the stage between acts. (And pictures were absolutely forbidden, so all you’re getting today is text.)

But the performances made all the waiting around worthwhile. There was a lot of music on the show that wasn’t bluegrass (Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas, the amazing Irma Thomas, and the emcee, actress Minnie Driver), so I won’t talk about that here. Suffice to say it will be well worth tuning in to the PBS special when it airs in March 2010.

Of bluegrass interest was Bela Fleck, who played a couple solo pieces. The one he played on the cello banjo was really cool. It was some music that he learned in Tanzania and Mali on the trip to Africa that resulted in the documentary film Throw Down Your Heart, and the CD of the same name. His second tune started out solo but quickly turned duo when he was joined on stage by Abigail Washburn, who sang I’ve Got The Keys To The Kingdom. His final tune was another duet—this time with Jerry Douglas. He said that they were “kids together on Rounder.” Indeed Bela was only 19 when the label first signed him.

The final act of the evening was Alison Krauss + Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas. It was great to see the band play together again, since they’ve been off doing individual projects for so long. They did five numbers including the first song that Alison recorded for Rounder back when she was a teenager, Too Late to Cry, written by John Pennell, who was in the audience. They sang their last song, A Living Prayer, gathered around one mic. The magical performance earned them a genuine standing ovation long enough to merit an encore, Ghost in this House.

After Ghost everyone pretty much thought the show was over and started leaving until Minnie Driver came back on stage and said that there’s a big finale with everyone singing on stage and “don’t leave!!” The feel-good medley of Angels Watching Over Me/I’ll Fly Away/Down By The Riverside was the perfect ending to the celebratory show.

One last note—part of the background set for the show were huge versions of album covers. It especially tickled me that one of the covers blown up was J.D. Crowe and The New South (Rounder 0044) in colors much more vibrant than they ever were on the cardboard LP jacket. It was, by the way, the second cover. Not the original one with J.D. signaling his intentions.