The Stanley Brothers had recorded off and on for Syd Nathan's Cincinnati-based King Records since 1958 when Carter Stanley died suddenly in 1966, leaving his brother Ralph Stanley at an unenviable crossroads. Ralph eventually approached Nathan about continuing to record for the label as a solo act, and Nathan, who had enjoyed strong sales with the Stanley Brothers, readily agreed, thus launching what amounted to a second 40-plus-year career for Ralph Stanley. He tracked three albums for King between 1967 and 1969 (Brand New ...
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The Stanley Brothers had recorded off and on for Syd Nathan's Cincinnati-based King Records since 1958 when Carter Stanley died suddenly in 1966, leaving his brother Ralph Stanley at an unenviable crossroads. Ralph eventually approached Nathan about continuing to record for the label as a solo act, and Nathan, who had enjoyed strong sales with the Stanley Brothers, readily agreed, thus launching what amounted to a second 40-plus-year career for Ralph Stanley. He tracked three albums for King between 1967 and 1969 (Brand New Country Songs, Over the Sunset Hill, and Hills of Home), the source for the 14 cuts on this collection (which functions as a kind of addendum to Time Life's Stanley Brothers compilation, The Definitive Collection 1947-1966). Carter was the songwriter in the original partnership, so Ralph opted to stay close to traditional Appalachian folk material, choosing songs that were often bone-chillingly dark and thus emotionally fitted to his ragged, weary-sounding tenor voice. That voice, which sounds as lonesome as a ghost crying out for solace on a starless night, brought both authenticity and an intangible spiritual toughness to everything Stanley sang, and made most other bluegrass singers sound like sweetened-up popsters. Stanley, by the way, has never labeled what he does bluegrass, calling it simply folk music, and that barely one-step remove from the Appalachian string band tradition is everywhere apparent in these stark tracks. Stanley places the song itself at the center of each performance, and the virtuoso speed and considered slickness of contemporary bluegrass are nowhere to be found here. These songs aren't about speed, and they aren't about getting to the first break at a gallop, but are instead deeply nuanced looks at hard times, impossible odds, and death filtered through a kind of steadfast acceptance of personal fate that borders on faith, if not exactly a faith in redemption. In truth, Stanley's singing suggests gospel as much or more than it does any other kind of music, and he's all country in the truest sense of the term. Although these tracks, which include the hard mountain country of "Wonderful World Outside," a barreling version of the traditional "Dark Hollow," and the gospel-tinged "I Wanna Go Home," were drawn from three different albums, they all fall together well and prefigure the sound that Stanley has stuck to ever since. He's become an American treasure by continuing to play American music and by remembering that if you don't have a song to sing then that banjo break won't mean a thing. ~ Steve Leggett, Rovi
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