This archive was created in 2000 and now contains 275 audio files, some dating from the late 19th century, though not all are actually housed at the Library of Congress. You can see the complete list, presented in chronological order on the National Recording Preservation Board web site.

Bluegrass fans have cherished both this song and the Stanleys’ recording of it for nearly 50 years. It is still played all over the world by amateur and professional bluegrass bands, and almost always using the arrangement that The Stanley Brothers recorded.

Here is a video of Ralph and Carter performing Rank Stranger on television, with the definitive George Shuffler kickoff. It would appear to be from the early ’60s – maybe our bluegrass historian friends can shed some more more light on that question.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gary Reid, the person to ask about matters relating to the Stanley Brothers, has this comment on hearing the news …………

(It) is among the best-known of their many recordings. It is, to me, perhaps the song that best captures the highly emotive quality of the Stanley Brothers singing. I think a lot of things conspired to make this recording a classic.

First, and foremost, is the singing of the brothers. Carter Stanley’s lead vocals are strong and self-assured, yet full of ache. You believe the sadness in his lyric is painfully real. And on the choruses, Ralph delivers an equally expressive, yet haunting, counterpoint.

Curly Lambert’s mandolin intro, and his work throughout the song, has been cited as his best work on record. And, there’s the quality of the recording itself.

To me, I think this was perhaps one of the best-recorded sessions the duo ever did. The whole session of 12 songs has a wonderful quality. The material has a great presence and is very clear. Although it was recorded in mono, there is a wonderful mix of instruments and voices… there’s just the right amount of back-up when needed, and nothing over rides or detracts from what is being featured.

Lastly, this song was recorded during a relatively stable time in the band’s career. They had a sponsor that provided them with a weekly salary and promoted them on multiple TV stations in the deep south. This was, perhaps, the best time (1960) for the Stanley Brothers. A steady income and a touring circuit that actually allowed them to have some family time conspired to make this one of the happiest times of Carter Stanley’s career. Perhaps this ease is also reflected in the approach to the music they were making then, including Rank Stranger.

Rank Stranger was recorded by the Stanley Brothers in 1960 and used as background material last year in a Barack Obama radio advert featuring Ralph Stanley that ran in Virginia

His brother George may be better known to bluegrass fans for his crosspicking guitar playing with the Stanleys, with whom John also spent time on bass. John suffered a stroke in February, and was hospitalized for almost 2 months. The show this weekend is to help with the unreimbursed medical expenses.

The show will be held at The Old Rock Schcool in Valdese, NC from 7:00-10:00 p.m. Scheduled to perform in a round robin concert are The John Shuffler Band, Strictly Clean and Decent, The Laurel Creek Band, Eric Ellis, David Johnson, Les Deaton, Alan Johnson, Rick Norris, Herb Lambert, David Wiseman and David Carswell. Russ Jordan will serve as M.C.

Ramsey, who played bass with Linville Ridge – and sired Mountain Heart’s scary good mandolinist, Aaron – shared a few thoughts about John…

“In Louisville, KY, during the IBMA, about 1999 or maybe 2000, Sonny Osborne came up with the idea of recognizing the notable ’sidemen’ in bluegrass music’s relatively short history. This was done during the awards show.

As they were fading out at the end of each presentation/performance segment, to the gaps for radio advertising, they were scrolling names of these musicians being recognized. I squalled great big when I saw the name John Shuffler scroll by. I think Aaron & Perry Woodie about jumped out of the boxed seat section where we were seated.

I was glad they recognized John for his time spent with Ralph & Carter.

According to Ron Shuffler, this will be a donation only event, with rotating musicians in many and varied combinations with ALL the funds collected going to John Shuffler. If you come, you’ll probably get to see big old me playing bass for a bit and then if you watch closely, you’ll see big old me contribute to John’s funds as well.

The Rock School seats 473. We can get 500 people in there if they pull out chairs. Now, if the place was full, and everyone gave a $20 bill, that would generate $10,000 towards helping John with his medical bills.”

Anyone who is unable to attend, but who would like to make a contribution towards John’s medical expenses,you can send them to the following address:

Jamming in the lobby is both encouraged and expected.

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.

In the New Testament, the book of Mark, Chapter 1, we are told John the Baptizer met Jesus in the Jordan river and baptized Jesus.  When Jesus came up out of the water the heavens opened and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove.  This image is contained in the lyrics of Sweet Holy Spirit by Joe Isaacs and recorded by the Isaacs on their project Heroes.

Joe writes:

From newadvent.org we find reference to two doves on a funeral monument sometimes signifying the conjugal love and affection of the parties buried there.  Perhaps Carter Stanley was thinking of that symbol when he wrote:

The New Advent website noted above also reflects that doves on a sarcophagus signify the peace of the departed soul, especially if it bears an olive branch in its beak.  In the "White Dove" perhaps Carter Stanley was mourning in sorrow, as the white dove, since mother and daddy are dead, an image associated with home and family in the Clinch Mountains where the brothers were born and raised.

Jeanie Stanley, Carter’s ‚Äòbaby girl’ shared her thoughts about The White Dove  ‚Ķ..

"My father wrote this particular song one night while he and Ralph were travelling. Ralph was aggravated because my father had the light on and it was bothering him. Then Ralph got miffed because my Dad had killed off their mother and father in the song when he heard it.  Needless to say, it became one of my father’s most well-known songs. The words just touch your very soul and are like darts to the heart.  It is probably Carter Stanley’s ’signature song’ so to speak. I think it tells of a mournful yearning for what becomes lost to some in their quest to find themselves. The person my father refers to in this song has come full circle. It is basically autobiographical in nature.  It was always one of my favorites."

It has been a song, as Ralph Stanley noted, that is “the backbone of the Stanley sound”. [Gary B Reid]

Recorded Sources -

• Columbia Master CO 40507 The Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys 1949-52 (Bear Family BCD 15564 AH)
• The Stanley Brothers – Clinch Mountain Bluegrass (Vanguard 77018-2) Recorded at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival
• The Stanley Brothers Stanley Series Volume 4 Number 1 (Copper Creek CCCD 5513) Recorded at New River Ranch, Rising Sun, Maryland – July 29, 1956
• The Stanley Brothers And The Clinch Mountain Boys The Essential Gospel Masters (Varese Sarabande 302 066 669 2) includes the 1959 King version of  White Dove [King single 5233]

Carter and Ralph along with the Clinch Mountain Boys of the day began their association with King Records of Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 30 with their first recording session after signing for the label earlier in the year.

The sessions on that date and the following day produced all 12 recordings that ultimately came out on the eponymous LP album with the catalogue number King 615.

The personnel involved in the sessions, which took place at the multi-functional King headquarters, supporting Carter and Ralph, were Bill Napier (mandolin), Al Elliott (bass and baritone vocals) and the recently recruited fiddler Ralph Mayo.

The Stanley brothers had long been noted for writing their own material, but these sessions marked an unusual departure from the norm. Carter certainly wrote many of the songs for the sessions except Love Me, Darling, Just Tonight, a song that the brothers learned from fellow entertainer on the Farm & Fun Time program in Bristol, Virginia-Tennessee, Red Malone. However, for the first time Carter used the name Ruby Rakes, who was his half-sister and lived in Michigan, if I recall correctly, for copyright purposes. Two other songs, Heaven Seemed So Near and Your Selfish Heart, were written by Elliot, although Carter had a share in the composer credits.

The latter song was about Elliott’s niece and her boyfriend, as Elliott told Stanley brothers’ historians Doug Gordon and Roy Burke III…

“It’s just a little story that come in my mind and I just wrote it. It gave me a real good feeling to know that they [the Stanley brothers] were gonna record two of my songs for a big recording company like that.” [King]

How Mountain Girls Can Love and The Memory Of Your Smile, the last two songs from the session were what Carter described during a live performance at New River Ranch earlier that month as “new ones.” However, for some reason when the brothers cut The Memory Of Your Smile they left out a verse that they had sung during that aforementioned appearance.

The following day, a Wednesday, as was October 1 this year, the quintet cut four instrumental numbers; Ralph’s Mastertone March and Train 45, which was learned from old-time fiddler G B Grayson. The brothers added a spoken exchange that resembled that of Bill Monroe’s on his Victor recording of Orange Blossom Special. Other two instrumental pieces, Clinch Mountain Backstep and Midnight Ramble were re-arrangements of the breakdown Lost John and Monroe’s first mandolin tune Tennessee Blues, respectively.

The last two selections were credited to Carter Stanley. Both were vocal pieces, the then newly-penned, now considered a classic, Think Of What You’ve Done and Keep A Memory.

King 615, released in 1959, is rightly acclaimed as a classic. The prime original material has proved an inspiration to modern-day bluegrass songwriters such as Larry Cordle, who wore out several copies of the LP version. I suspect that he is one of many who had to purchase more than one copy to enjoy these 12 terrific performances from one of the greatest of all bluegrass bands.

Joe Wilson, the Director of the Blue Ridge Music Center, Galax, VA,  knew the Stanley brothers very well at the time. Here he shares his thoughts about some of the personnel at these sessions ‚Ķ..

“That band offered the comforts the brothers needed to get into new material. Napier lived in Grundy, just over the hill from where Carter and Ralph was reared in Dickinson County. They’d grown up with him. They let him take them in some new directions, especially with guitar. He created the syncopated flat-pick lead associated with them, a style taken up and expanded later by George Shuffler, who almost became a third brother.

Mayo was from Kingsport, Tennessee, directly south of where the Stanleys and Napier lived, and he had a lot in common with them. Like them, he’d grown up on Grayson’s 78 recordings. Carter, in particular, was fascinated by Grayson and how many of his songs became standards. I’m from Johnson County, Tennessee, where Grayson lived, and my mom went to school with his children, so Carter asked questions about him. I recall standing on the steps of the War Memorial Building after a WSM Friday Night Frolic where Carter and Ralph had guested around 1960, and talking with Carter about Grayson and Tom Ashley, another Johnson County old-timer who had once done blackface comedy with Carter and Ralph.

Mayo was a fine singer, and absolutely great at backing a vocal with the fiddle. He had that smokey tone that Grayson created, and he played many of the old-time tunes Grayson recorded. He was not your standard chord-playing bluegrasser. He had a remarkable band on WCYB’s Farm and Fun time in the fifties, a few years before those Stanley recordings. They were called Ralph Mayo and the Southern Mountain Boys and Jack Cassidy, usually called Blind Boy Jack, was lead singer. Mayo also did some lead singing, and was a good harmony singer. Porter Church was one of the top early banjo players, and was with them. Lindy Clear was the bass player and did comedy. He also worked for a time with the Stanleys. He could imitate farmyard sounds, and had routines like ‘ringing the pig,’ and the race between the Model T and the train.

Mayo liked variety and put on a hell of a show. When playing outdoor parks he would bring along a character named Suicide Jones. His act was to climb into a plywood coffin, have the top nailed on, and blow it up with two sticks of dynamite. Of course he had a thick section of steel sheet metal between him and the dynamite, and ear protection muffs. Along with the craziness, they were a truly fine band, great singers and fine players. To my ear they were among the finest early bluegrass bands and it is a huge tragedy that they made no recordings. Mayo made an okay 78rpm with L. C. Smith, but none with that great band. Ralph Mayo was all artist, not a businessman. He drove an over-the-road truck when not playing music. He was not with the Stanley road band for very long. They had a lot of turnover during those years.

Keeping a bluegrass band together then and now depends on having a good manager. Ralph was a highly competent manager, bookkeeper, booking agent, and boss of the band for the Stanley Brothers. Carter was the main songwriter and song sleuth, and the jawbone man on stage. He was addicted to alcohol during all those years, and Ralph had to take care of him. But even when half looped, Carter had a good sense of values for his music. He’d learned that song ownership was important, that one made as much money from song-writing and arrangements as he did from performance. He had a good heart, and it is sad he left us so soon.”

As has already been noted, the bass player, Al Elliott, wrote two songs on the album. Stanley Brothers’ historian Gary B. Reid provides a bit more information about his contributions to the sessions ‚Ķ‚Ķ‚Ķ

“Al Elliott was a member of the Stanley band for several years, playing off and on from 1958 until 1961. He played bass and mandolin and doubled in the comedy role of ‘Towser’ Murphy. In the spoken exchange to the classic instrumental recording Train 45, ‘Towser’ can be heard giving the destination of his travels as ‘Big Stone Gap, Virginia,’ his real hometown.

His baritone vocals added greatly to several trio selections found on the King-615 album. In later years, he kept busy performing in a local band called The Blue Ridge Partners.”

So begins the mournful song written by Jack Adkins and Buddy Dee, and recorded by the Stanley Brothers in February 1958 at Radio WCYB in Bristol, VA. No School Bus In Heaven was the last official studio recording that Carter and Ralph would make for the Mercury label.

It relates the tragic story of a tragedy which took place 50 years ago in Floyd County, Kentucky, wherein 26 children and the driver of the bus in which they were traveling lost their lives when the bus plunged into the Big Sandy River

“These little school children have gone on to glory,” but they left behind heart-broken parents, families and friends. The children and the bereaved are remembered in a gut-wrenching article in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Survivors and those who lost loved ones rarely mention what happened in 1958. They spend most days at home, passing one another at the post office or the grocery store. They sit together in church, bonded by their silent grief and heavy hearts.

But it is a story the whole town knows well. Pictures of those who drowned still hang in local restaurants, schoolhouses and funeral homes.

“People don’t talk about it much. It’s too painful to talk about,” said Orville Ousley, 85, who lost one of his three sons in the accident. “When the anniversary comes each year, we avoid each other and we hide in our homes.”

Read the full piece from the Herald-Leader online.

The 20 song anthology embraces some of the classic songs in bluegrass music from some of the great acts in the business (track listing below).

So many of the songs here are inextricably linked with the Rebel catalogue; Bringing Mary Home, Fox On The Run and Atlanta Is Burning being three notable examples. These are signature songs as is Love Of The Mountains. There are the tour de force pieces like Rice’s Nine Pound Hammer and JD Crowe’s Train 45 also.

Most of the material is direct from the Rebel vaults, whereas some came to them indirectly, such as – and I speculate here – the Lilly Brothers track, which was originally recorded for Event Records in 1956 or 1957 and later appeared on a County LP. It was subsequently reissued on a Rebel CD (1688). Others in this category are Little Rosewood Casket – Don Reno & Red Smiley (from a Wango LP), Footprints In The Snow – Mac Wiseman (Vetco material, perhaps), Poor Ellen Smith – Ted Lundy & the Southern Mountain Boys (County), Pig In A Pen – Stanley Brothers (Wango) and Lonesome Road Blues – Larry Richardson & Happy Smith (County).

There’s lots of fine traditional material here, which is typical of this series, and which, apparently, has been doing very well for Rebel. Judging by the titles and the artists listed, the potential for this set to match its predecessors is great.

For those who have a long-time interest in bluegrass music the songs and the respective bands speak for themselves; for newcomers this album is a good place to start investigating the Rebel catalogue.

Thanks must be made to Gary Reid for sharing his thoughts on some aspects of this collection.

Complete track list…

• Nine Pound Hammer – Tony Rice
• John Henry – Lilly Brothers & Don Stover
• Bringing Mary Home – Country Gentlemen
• Wabash Cannonball – Claire Lynch
• Whitehouse Blues – Del McCoury
• Footprints In The Snow – Mac Wiseman
• Atlanta Is Burning – Boys From Indiana
• Fireball Mail – Lonesome River Band
• Fox On The Run – Emerson & Waldron
• Poor Ellen Smith – Ted Lundy & the Southern Mountain Boys
• Love Of The Mountains – Lost & Found
• Darling Corey – Seldom Scene
• Little Glass Of Wine – Ralph Stanley
• Train 45 – J.D. Crowe
• Little Rosewood Casket – Don Reno & Red Smiley
• Pig In A Pen – Stanley Brothers
• Dream Of A Miner’s Child – Whitley & Skaggs
• Down In The Willow Garden – Dave Evans
• Roving Gambler – Larry Sparks
• Lonesome Road Blues – Larry Richardson & Happy Smith

He performed with both The Stanley Brothers and Jimmy Martin during the 1960s after gaining some exposure during a brief stint with Flatt & Scruggs. A memorable contribution to the bluegrass repertoire is his instrumental Arab Bounce, originally recorded by Martin and The Sunny Mountain Boys in 1970, and re-cut dozens of times by other artists since.

Country music came calling as well, and Vernon spent time with artists as varied as Lefty Frizzell, Merle Travis and George Morgan to Hank Williams, Jr. It was with Hank Jr. that Derrick saw his greatest prominence, playing fiddle on #1 hits All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down and Country Boy Can Survive.

Vernon had been in poor health this past few years, and suffered from both renal and congestive heart failure. He underwent surgery in December and though he came home briefly after Christmas, he was hospitalized again earlier in the week.

Funeral arrangements can be found on The Arab Tribune web site, which also published a comprehensive overview of Vernon Derrick’s career some time ago.

Another pioneer lost…

Forty years before the ‘O Brother/Down From The Mountain’ tour, an earlier group of like-minded musicians took some Appalachian music on the road. Thankfully, some of the music performed by the small band of minstrels that toured Europe under the title of the American Folk & Country Festival was recorded for posterity.

I believe that there have been taped copies of these shows in circulation, but now Bear Family Records has announced the release of a 2-CD set of recordings from those dates in March 1966. The collection, entitled American Folk & Country Music Festival [Bear Family BCD 16849 BK] comprises 41 tracks, packaged in an LP-size box, along with a 76-page hardcover book that features the usual treasure trove of photos and memorabilia.

Here’s what the Bear Family website has to say about their recent release ‚Ķ‚Ķ.

It was 1966, and the success of the American Folk & Blues festivals in Europe led to the Festival of American Country Music. But this wasn’t slick Nashville music, it was old time, Cajun, bluegrass, and folk music with deep roots in the mountains and swamps of America’s rural South. The artists included The Stanley Brothers (just a few months before Carter Stanley’s death), Roscoe Holcomb, The New Lost City Ramblers, Cyp Landreneau’s Cajun Band, and Cousin Emmy. Together, they offer a fascinating glimpse of early American music played with heart and soul. All the artists were still in peak form and gave European audiences their first taste of this side of American traditional music. It was a historic tour, and decades ahead of its time. In 2000-2002, the performers whose music was heard in ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’ staged a tour called ‘Down From The Mountain.’ The idea was the same as the Festival of American Country Music in 1966, except that the music heard in the Festival of American Country Music was truly down from the mountain (just one artist was on both tours: Ralph Stanley).

The collection is highlighted by detailed reminiscences by Mike Seeger, Tracy Schwarz, and John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers, all of whom could appreciate the music both as fans and performers.

One member, John Cohen shares this interesting observation ……

“For bluegrass listeners, the set shows how Carter Stanley sounded and looked at the end of his life, and also makes the firm connection between Roscoe Holcomb and Ralph Stanley. For me, Roscoe’s devotion to the Old Baptist unaccompanied singing reawakened something in Ralph, which emerged so many years later in ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’. Musically and stylistically it’s all there… predicting what eventually happened. Some of Roscoe’s performances are him at his best.”

The book also includes original photos from John Cohen, Klaus-R?ºdiger M?ºller, Lillies Ohlsson, Reinhard Pietsch, and Reinald Schumann.

A full, detailed track listing can be found on the Bear Family web site.

This is a very attractive package, with much to offer to long-time Stanley aficionados, while providing a grand introduction to younger bluegrass fans just discovering their music. The photography is beautifully reproduced, and Gary Reid’s extensive notes are not to be missed. Folks, this is one you don’t want to download online.

The booklet also contains a detailed discography with original label and release date information for each track. I was especially taken by the inclusion of so many of the original cover images in the booklet, as well as their songbooks from the period.

Of course, the music is the main attraction, and I have enjoyed these CDs from start to finish – many times. The remastering of the original audio is top notch, and the sequencing of songs allows you to savor the music as it progressed chronologically. Several rare and a few previously unreleased tracks are featured, including live performances.

I don’t imagine that it is possible to overstate the importance of The Stanley Brothers in the history and development of bluegrass music. Any serious student of bluegrass who is not intimately familiar with this material has an incomplete education. Do yourself a favor and add this fine collection to your music library.

Audio samples for all 60 tracks can be found on the Time-Life site. The CD set should be available later this week wherever bluegrass music is sold, or directly from Time-Life.

You can add your name and address online, and the folks at WWB will send the petitions on to the Hall Of Fame once they receive 10,000 signatures on each.

The Osborne Brothers petition can be found here, and The Stanley Brothers here.

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.

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. I just listened to him sing ‘Angel Band’ just last night on my iPod. I just saw a great picture of him and Ralph with Joe Meadows and Bill Lowe from ‘55 in this months BU. His music is still so important in Bluegrass. He was a song writers’ song writer, such a great MC on stage, he had everything it took to be a superstar in his Genre. I can only imagine how Ralph has missed him all these years. But Ralph did the only thing he could do. He went on! Thank God he did. What a testament to this music that we all love, Stanley Brothers music. It’s real, it’s honest, it’s from the heart and soul, it’s the sounds of heaven. Rest well Carter, we all love what you left us, and I’ll see you again someday.”

Charlie Sizemore was lead singer with the Clinch Mountain Boys for about nine years from shortly before his 17th birthday in November 1977. Subsequently he formed his own band and has released praiseworthy albums on Old Homestead and Rebel Records.

“I saw Carter Stanley only once – in the late winter or early spring of ‘66 at the Salyer Elementary School in Royalton, KY. I was five years old then, but I do remember being excited about seeing the Stanley Brothers. I recall telling my father that I didn’t know there were three Stanley Brothers. He replied: That’s Melvin Goins playing the bass. (There was only a three piece band at that show.) I got Carter’s autograph that night. I still have it.

You need to understand that where I grew up in Eastern KY, the Stanley Bros. were a huge deal. Much more so than Monroe or Flatt and Scruggs. Being drawn to music and having a houseful of Stanley Bros. records at my disposal, I had learned most of their songs mostly by osmosis before I finished elementary school. My brother John and I used to set up a fake microphone and pretend to be the Stanley Brothers.”

Big Stanley Brothers fan Dudley Connell credits Carter Stanley as the major reason why he became a bluegrass musician.

“It was Carter Stanley’s distinctive and emotive voice than inspired me to want to sing bluegrass. Carter could sing “Pig in a Pen” and make you feel sorry for the pig. No one before or since has had such an influence on my singing or what I look for in a singer. In my opinion, he was/is simply the best. I once asked Bill Monroe who was his favorite lead singer in the history of the Blue Grass Boys. His answer, “Well, Carter Stanley was the best natural lead singer I ever had”. Enough said. Enough said.”

Legendary banjoist from Maggie Valley, North Carolina, Raymond Fairchild has often spoken affectionately of Carter Stanley and speaks highly of him here with this brief but heartfelt testimonial..

“Carter Stanley was a master of his art, picking and singing mountain music. He was among the best song writers I ever knew. Carter played rhythm guitar with thumb and finger picks and he sang lead from his heart, and he also was among the best MC’s of his day. Carter Stanley had it all, a god-given talent and one in many that could do it all, and do it right. Forty years has passed since his death. There will never be another Carter Stanley. Still missing you Carter.”

After Carter Stanley’s death brother Ralph turned to Larry Sparks to take on the role of guitarist and lead singer in the Clinch Mountain Boys. This was a job Sparks had for about three years before he went on to form his own band. Here Larry Sparks remembers some earlier times with both Stanley brothers.

“I played some shows with Carter Stanley in 1965-66. I can remember him as being one of the best stage leaders ever. He knew what to sing, how to sing it and how to entertain his many fans. I think Carter was no doubt the most heartfelt singer in bluegrass up until his death in 1966. He gave to this music what it needed. I treasure getting to know him for a little while.”

For an international perspective on Carter Stanley, I asked Barry C Lane, an English friend, who has a long history of involvement in the British bluegrass music scene, for his thoughts about Carter Stanley

“I remember the day I walked in to ‘Greenwood Record Sales’ shop in Bradford. It was a dull, cold, damp day and I was looking to see what new bluegrass LPs my friend ‘Goff’ [Greenwood]had received into stock. The day was not brightened up by the sight of any new goodies but more the opposite, as Goff related that Carter Stanley had died.

I had missed seeing them in London earlier in the year as the grapevine on the folk club circuit only told me that the Stanley Brothers had played, the week after the event. Now it was December and the loss was all the more intense. I didn’t realise he was even ill in those pre ‘Bluegrass Unlimited’ days.

I had been playing guitar and singing, with Ray Hipworth doing the banjo… and he could do that sort of octave staccato lick that Ralph used so often. We tried doing the Stanley Brothers songs but it never sounded right, for the brothers had a harmony which was all their own. I could mimic Carter (badly) but neither of us could emulate the tenor of Ralph. We missed their sound by miles! There have been very few in the UK who could get anywhere close to the Stanley sound.

My great sorrow on hearing the news of Carter’s death was that the Stanley Brothers unique sound would be lost for ever. We were not favoured with many available records by the Stanley Brothers in the mid 1960s but the brothers had recorded so much material that I have spent the last forty years catching up on the stuff and although the Stanleys and Ralph’s later work greatly out number albums by any other artist in my collection, there are still a few titles that I haven’t got. It was only relatively recently that video of the brothers could be added to the records. It all shows how much I still miss Carter after all these years.”

I don’t think anybody would disagree with me when I say that Gary Reid is the premier authority on the Stanley Brothers’ music. He has written notes for recordings by the Stanley Brothers for each era of their recording career. Additionally, he has compiled two four-CD boxed sets of Stanley Brothers’ Starday and King recordings and, through a series of live recordings, Reid has issued a selection of concert recordings from a number of their personal appearances made during the duo’s heyday.

“Having recently celebrated my 50th birthday, it’s amazing to me to look back and realize that I’ve been enamoured with the music of the Stanley Brothers for 33 years. I discovered their music, and the music of Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs, by accident, while sifting through stacks of albums that a high school instructor had loaned me ‚Äì things have never been the same since!

Although I was exposed to a lot of different performers in the field of bluegrass, it was the music of Carter and Ralph Stanley that has stuck with me the most over the years. As a team, they were ‚Äì in my book ‚Äì hard to beat. It’s hard to articulate in words the emotional power of their music that makes it so compelling. I had occasion to speak with Bud Reed a year or so ago ‚Äì he was the husband of the late Ola Belle Reed and a partner in the legendary 1950s country music park known as New River Ranch. As someone who witnessed many of the top acts in the music during the genre’s golden era, it was a strong statement on his part when he said, quite simply, that Carter Stanley was the best lead singer he’d ever heard.

The qualities of the duo have been noted a lot of times‚Ķ the sincerity of their vocals and the blend they achieved with their harmonies, the tender themes of love, loss, and sorrow in their songs, and the instrumental prowess that each of the brothers achieved on their respective instruments. In addition to the 500 or so songs that the duo recorded, I’ve collected numerous hours of live concert recordings and interviews ‚Äì in the process, I’ve been struck by the genial nature of their delivery on stage. Carter’s MC work was always personable as he related to the audience tidbits about the songs they performed.

As far as anniversaries go, I wish this was one that we didn’t need to remember or honor ‚Äì certainly not that Carter Stanley isn’t worthy of our adoration. Rather, I wish the guy was still around so that I’d have had the chance to know and appreciate him in person. As much as I’ve read about and enjoyed Ralph Stanley’s music over the years, being able to know and connect with him is far more meaningful and insightful than learning about him second-hand.

In any event, I’ve enjoyed coming to know Carter Stanley as best as I’ve been able to do. I look forward to coming to know him better as the years roll on. If his rewards here on earth were not what they should have been, hopefully he can take comfort in the fact that a growing legion of people continue to discover and admire his artistry. It’s probably safe to say that his popularity and sphere of influence is greater today than it was in the twenty years of his professional life. It’s been an honor to have played a small part in helping to keep his legacy alive and growing.”

Editor’s note: Richard Thompson is due our thanks and admiration for compiling these remembrances of Carter Stanley, whose contributions as a singer and songwriter represent some of the most precious gifts we have received since the birth of bluegrass music.

The first of the two digital reissues is the all-Gospel, Let Me Rest On A Peaceful Mountain, which first came out in 1975, and which features some of the finest a cappella “mountain style” harmony you’ll ever find. The other, Old Home Place, was originally released the following year and includes Whitley singing the classic Sharecropper’s Son, and the cut of If That’s The Way You Feel, later covered (brilliantly) by Ricky Skaggs during his country period.

The album title links above will take you into the iTunes Music Store, but you must have a copy of iTunes software installed on your computer in order to hear the audio samples, or purchase these fine recordings. These two Rebel reissues are only available from iTunes.

We congratulate Rebel Records for making these wonderful albums available again, and hope to see this trend continue. There is a wealth of bluegrass music, out of print from an original LP release, which has never found its way onto CD. Sometimes individual tracks make it into box sets and collections, but we see this option of re-releasing them in toto, but for download only, as an excellent alternative – and one we hope to see repeated many times.

That company is now being assembled, and auditions are still open. Casting is being handled by Paul Russell Casting in New York, and they are currently seeking three principal characters:

RALPH STANLEY Early 30″s to mid 40″s. Great banjo player. Actor must be able to sing high bluegrass harmonies for which Ralph is famous and play banjo well. A man of subtle humor and deep thoughts, Ralph is soft spoken with a big voice. Good comic delivery a must plus charisma as a performer. Ralph had a strong bond with his brother, Carter. Southwestern Virginia Appalachian accent a must”

FIDDLE PLAYER / RECORD EXECUTIVE / ANGEL OF DEATH Early 30″s to mid 40″s. An actor-musician who can play bluegrass / country fiddle well, sing harmonies and do character work. Southwestern Virginia Appalachian accent a must. Actor portrays one of the musicians from The Clinch Mountain Boys (one of the Stanley Brothers singing groups). Actor also plays a slick record label executive and the Angel of Death. The last two personas are not to be confused as one”

ACTOR WHO PLAYS STAND-UP BASS Early 30″s to late 40″s. A male actor-musician who can play stand-up bass well, sing harmonies and do character work. Actor portrays one of the musicians from The Clinch Mountain Boys. Southwestern Virginia Appalachian accent a must”

The tour is expected to run from the middle of September through November 2006, and then resume again for a second run January-March 2007. Resumes need to be submitted to Paul Russell Casting by February 2006.

You can find submission details on their web site.

The show mixes live musical performance with dialog and dramatic representations, and The Barter Theater’s web site describes it this way:

Man of Constant Sorrow reveals the struggle of Ralph and his older brother Carter, to find an audience for their music at a time when bluegrass and mountain music were being rapidly replaced by country and rock. Folk, traditional gospel and bluegrass were the music of their home in the hills of Southwestern Virginia. Record companies and radio station managers urged the brothers to get in on the rock n” roll craze led by Elvis Presley, but they refused to give up the music on which they were raised. They remained loyal to their family, their roots, and who they truly were.

The show is currently doing a road show tour through Virginia and Tennessee, and a review was published in the Roanoke Times on October 10.

UPDATE: We just heard from Debbie Addison, Marketing Director for Barter Theater, that Man Of Constant Sorrow will be touring on a much larger scale, with a professional touring company, in the latter part of 2006 and early 2007. Keep an eye on The Bluegrass Blog for more details as they are announced.