The Irish Ralph Stanley

I knew this was a collection of folk songs, of course, but this one in particular sounded so ancient that I thought the singer must be long dead. In fact, Paddy Tunney died in 2002, a contemporary of the first generation bluegrass singers of whom he reminds me so vividly. “The Irish Ralph Stanley,” I thought when I first heard Tunney sing.

Like Stanley, Paddy Tunney had an ear for emotional stories about people who have been marginalized by public shaming. This one’s called “Rockin’ the Cradle”.