Today’s edition of USA Today includes an article and interview with Ralph Stanley, primarily about his new CD, A Distant land To Roam: Songs of the Carter Family, recently released on DMZ/Columbia Records. The article is by Brian Mansfield and it discusses the impact that the music of the Carters had on the young Stanley, and his impressions of A.P. Carter when they met when both were on the radio on WCYB in Bristol, VA.

You can hear audio samples from the new Stanley CD on CMT.com – unless you are a on a Macintosh computer, which are not supported. Mac users can hear samples via iTunes.

Mansfield also brought up the inevitable question of retirement for the bluegrass legend.

Stanley, who now lives in Coeburn, Va., currently has dates booked all over the eastern half of the USA well past his 80th birthday next February. Clearly, he has no intentions of hanging up his banjo any time soon.

“I know I’ll have to sometime, but, you know, I hate to think that I’d completely retire,” he says. “That’s left up to the good Lord. He has blessed me all through the years to be able to do this, and I believe he’ll be the man to tell me when to quit.”

Find the article on the USA Today web site.