![2012 Stagecoach: California's Country Music Festival - Day 2 2012 Stagecoach: California's Country Music Festival - Day 2](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/gettyimages-143550114.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
By NBC News
Ralph Stanley, the godfather of traditional bluegrass music who found a new generation of fans late in life thanks to his Grammy-winning music for the 2000 movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” died Thursday at the age of 89, his grandson announced.
Stanley — a virtuoso clawhammer banjoist and founder of the groundbreaking band the Clinch Mountain Boys — “went peacefully in his sleep due to a long, horrible battle with skin cancer,” Nathan Stanley, a popular gospel and bluegrass musician in his own right, wrote on his website late Thursday.
Ralph Stanley’s official Facebook page reprinted the announcement a…
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