Bob Webster, the WAMU/bluegrasscountry presenter of the Sunday morning programme Stained Glass Bluegrass, and regular contributor Richard F Thompson have collaborated to bring this story about the origins of the song The White Dove, the Stanley Brothers’ favourite.

An abridged version of the story will appear in a forthcoming edition of British Bluegrass News magazine.

On this date (1 March) 60 years ago the Stanley Brothers recorded the now classic The White Dove for Columbia Records.

It was a song that Carter Stanley wrote while on the road according to what he told Mike Seeger, shortly before he passed away,

"I have done the most songs that I have written at night. A lot of times travelling; you know, nobody saying much, your mind wanders, one thing to another. I guess  you’d call it imagination. I remember very well when I wrote ‘The White Dove’. We was coming home from Ashville, North Carolina, to Bristol, Tennessee, and I had the light on because I wanted to write it down and Ralph was fussing at me for having the light on. He was driving and he said the light bothered him, but he hasn’t fused any more about that."

About 10 years later Ralph confirmed that, when speaking to Bob Cantwell,

"It was one of his first songs. He was in the back seat of the car writing that and by the time we got to the radio station near home we had a verse and chorus worked out. I don’t know what caused him to think of the white dove except that he was studying on it, how it could affect you‚Ķ"

The White Dove was the second song recorded, among eight that they did that day during a session at Castle Studio, in the Tulane Hotel, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Three out of the four, including The White Dove, were given different treatment from the normal Stanley Brothers’ approach to their trio arrangement.  At the suggestion of Art Wooten, they introduced a high baritone vocal, with Pee Wee Lambert and Ralph Stanley singing above Carter Stanley’s lead.

The White Dove was paired with Gathering Flowers for the Master’s Bouquet on a Columbia 78, No. 20577, released on 4 April, 1949. In addition to Carter Stanley (guitar), Ralph Stanley (banjo) and Lambert (mandolin), the recording featured ‚ÄòJay’ Hughes (bass) and Bobby Sumner (fiddle).

We know from symbolic traditions that white doves are associated with love and devotion, peace and unity. They mate for life and strive to return home. Although we’re not sure exactly what Biblical reference Crarer Stanley may have had in mind in writing the White Dove, there are several connections with scripture from the Holy Bible.

We learn in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 8, that after forty days of the great flood, Noah was still on the ark when he first released a raven to search for land.  Then Noah sent forth a dove to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground, but the dove found no place to set her foot and returned to the ark.  Noah waited another seven days and again sent out the dove.  This time the dove returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf, a sign the waters were receding.  Noah waited another seven days and sent forth the dove again and she did not return, an indication of having found land. (more…)

Music Of Coal – Various Artists (Lonesome Records & Publishing CD 071); two CDs with 70 page book, released in 2007

The work of coal miners has long been commemorated in song, disasters have led to contemporaneous ballad type songs and personal acquaintance with victims of the industry has led to intense, heart-rending insights into the side-effects of working below ground. Many songs have been found during song-catcher expeditions – some of those recording are found here, others have been written by those with a social conscience as a form of protest at times of strife. As well as embracing the social ramifications, political, historic and economic aspects of life in coal mining communities.

The industry ‘captured’ labour at a very young age and the picture of a disheveled youngster on the cover is a evidence of that. It’s a refection of the level of poverty for the often big families that boys had to go to work in the mines to help boost their father’s income. There has seemingly been very little scope for avoiding the pits. Not many people have been able to follow Ron Short’s advice in Set Yourself Free.

The collection is sub-titled Mining Songs From The Appalachian Coalfields and, in fact, the music chosen is pared down to music from southern Appalachia and to that by local talent. There is a mixture of styles – big band, jazz, old-time (in its various sub-sets, including string band), traditional country, bluegrass, folk, blues, boogie-woogie and choral.

Also, the performances are by people from a variety of classes; miners, labour organisers, activists, religious leaders and professional musicians. The quality of these vary, just as the sound quality of the recordings themselves vary, but some tracks do feature well known pickers; Mike Seeger, Jimmy Gaudreau, Jim Watson, Wayne Benson, Robert Bowlin, Glen Duncan, Mike Bubb, Jamie Johnson and Jimmy Mattingly included.

The recordings themselves span a century, beginning with the opening song on the first disc – Down In A Coal Mine an excerpt from The Edison Concert Band and made in 1908. Other recordings from the early part of the last century include Mining Camp Blues by Trixie Smith (1925); He’s Only A Miner Killed In The Ground -Ted Chestnut (1928); Coal Miner’s Blues – The Carter Family (1938) and Sprinkle Coal Dust On My Grave – Orville Jenks (1940), sung to the same melody as Sunny Side Of The Mountain. (more…)

This post is a contribution from Richard Thompson, a founding member of the British Bluegrass Music Association, and a semi-regular correspondent and contributor for The Bluegrass Blog. He is also a longstanding contributor to British Bluegrass News, a quarterly print publication where he also briefly served as editor.

Time-Life will release a three-CD boxed set from the Stanley Brothers in April. The Definitive Collection: 1947-1966 marks the 60th anniversary of the first recordings that Carter and Ralph Stanley did together and includes three previously unreleased tracks and three songs never before available on a CD. Highlights include The White Dove, Rank Strangers, How Mountain Girls Can Love, Pretty Polly and O Death. The project includes a special introduction by Ricky Skaggs and a biographical essay written by historian Gary Reid of Copper Creek Records, and also features many rare photos.

The Definitive Collection: 1947-1966 comprises 60 tracks in all. The previously unreleased cuts are all live recordings: Will You Be Loving Another Man – ca. 1955 – is from a performance at Bean Blossom, Indiana, Sugar Coated Love was recorded on July 4, 1961, at Oak Leaf Park in Luray, Virginia, and is a Carter Stanley/Bill Monroe duet and Tell Me Why My Daddy Don’t Come Home is from an August 1962 personal appearance at the Ash Grove in Hollywood, California.

The recordings new to CD include Hide Ye In The Blood, from the Wango archives, and Dust on the Bible from the Cabin Creek LP (CC 203). The booklet comprises 39 pages, with lots of photographs, including several that have never been published before.

Gary Reid shared a few comments about this new box set, and how he came to be involved.

“I had done some previous work with Time-Life in helping to put together their Classic Bluegrass Collection, an 8-CD/120 song collection that is being sold on half-hour infomercials on various TV stations. While working on that project, my point man at Time-Life, Joe Sasfy, told me of the label’s desire to do a career retrospective on the music of the Stanley Brothers.

While there have been boxed set collections on the music of Carter and Ralph, they have tended to document a certain era of their career (ie, the Mercury years, or the Starday and King years). This is the first collection to feature a complete overview from start to finish. In picking the tunes, we obviously wanted to get the essential tracks (ie, The White Dove, The Fields Have Turned Brown, Angel Band, Man of Constant Sorrow, etc.) but we also wanted to get some obscure things that even the most die-hard Stanley collectors wouldn’t have.”

Gary also mentioned that Ralph Stanley is aware of this retrospective, but had no hand in selecting the songs or photos.

Time-Life shows April 3, 2007 as the release date, and it will be available on their web site, and surely from other bluegrass resellers as well.

This post is a contribution from Richard Thompson, a founding member of the British Bluegrass Music Association. He is also a longstanding contributor to British Bluegrass News, a quarterly print publication where he also briefly served as editor. He wrote the Roots & Branches column for International Country Music News for some years, and is now preparing a factbook (catalog of important events) on the life of Bill Monroe.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Carter Glen Stanley’s passing in a Bristol, Tennessee hospital. He was just 41 years old. As Ricky Skaggs comments below, it is hard to appreciate that forty years since Carter Stanley succumbed to an illness that had been troubling him for a while.

Despite such a passage of time Carter Stanley’s music can be enjoyed well onto the 21st century and beyond. A brief glance at the Fresh Sounds In The World Of Bluegrass column in the latest edition of the IBMA newsletter, International Bluegrass, will reveal that Carter Stanley’s name is noted twice as the source of songs on recent recordings by Dave Evans and Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain. This is indicative of a bluegrass legacy that has really stood the test of time.

We have asked a number of people to share their thoughts about Carter Stanley. I should like to thank them all for their contribution and we must acknowledge particularly the help that James Alan Shelton and Jeanie Stanley have provided during the course of compiling this tribute to Carter Stanley.

Current lead guitarist for the Clinch Mountain Boys, James Alan Shelton, who wrote in the October edition of Bluegrass Unlimited about Carter Stanley’s last full show – at Bean Blossom, October 16, 1966 – has admired Carter Stanley from afar.

“To me, Carter Stanley was the greatest natural lead singer who ever lived. He sang right on pitch and his song writing was second to none. As the front man and emcee for the Stanley Brothers he always had a way of saying just the right thing to introduce a song, or maybe tell a joke or a story about the songs to keep the show moving along. He was also a good rhythm guitar player. By all accounts he was a highly intellectual person, a deep thinker, who was on a different level than most people. I felt like he carried himself with a lot of class. My only regret is that I never got to meet him. But by first hand accounts from people who did know him, I think he would have been a friend.”

Ricky Skaggs, along with the late Keith Whitley, grew up singing Stanley Brothers songs. In one notable incident, the duo were invited on stage to cover for a delayed Ralph Stanley, who, when he heard them, was so impressed with their renditions of classic Stanley Brothers’ songs that he invited them to join the Clinch Mountain Boys when they were old enough to go on the road. Ricky and Keith made several recordings with and without Ralph. As they say, the rest is history. But Carter Stanley is far from history as far as Ricky Skaggs is concerned.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s been 40 years since the passing of Carter Stanley. (more…)