Yesterday’s edition of The Knoxville News Sentinel published an interview with Ralph Stanley, written by Wayne Bledsoe.

The initial thrust of the piece is Stanley’s recent receipt of a National Medal of Arts Award. Continuing from there, the article also delves into the early days of bluegrass when Ralph was performing with his brother Carter, and his belief that the folk and bluegrass festivals that sprang up in the 1960s may have kept bluegrass music from sliding into obscurity.

Bledsoe gets Stanley to share a number of refections on his life in bluegrass music.

“When we started, we didn’t know if it was gonna last a week or a month or years,” says Stanley, “but I never dreamed I’d still be doing it after 60 years.”

You can read the entire article on the News Sentinel web site.