Ponder: "those old songs don't sugarcoat anything"

"But Ralph always reserved time in each show for a few of the older songs that he would sing himself.  Those were the moments that audience members were most likely to remember afteward.  They were a reminder of a time and place where death and backbreaking work were not hidden out of sight, but were a constant presence.
"I don't put nothing on the song," Ralph told me. "I just sing it the way I feel it.  I just open my mouth and however it sounds, that's the way it comes out.  I try to do it the best I can, but I just try to feel it...Those old songs don't sugarcoat anything.  You don't hear that kind of singing much anymore, but when I was growing up, it was mostly what I heard.  That sound's not spread out everywhere; it's just here in these mountains."

Geoffrey Himes, "If Mount Rushmore Were in Appalachia, This Face Would Be On It."  The Washington Post 25 Jun. 2016, C2.