Ballads & Bluegrass (Adelphi AD 2013) was recorded in April and May 1978 at Track Recorders in Silver Spring, Maryland, and released by Adelphi that year. The producers are credited as Bill Harrell & the Virginians, and Harrell also wrote the liner notes. Harrell sings lead and plays guitar. The Virginians were Darrell Sanders on banjo and tenor vocal, Carl Nelson on fiddle and baritone vocal, and Ed Ferris on acoustic bass, who adds the bass voice on the quartet numbers. Mike Auldridge plays Dobro.
Harrell is credited with arranging four public-domain pieces: “Mary Dear,” “The Letter Edged in Black,” “I Never Will Marry” and Fanny Crosby and W. H. Doane’s hymn “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior.” He wrote “I Dipped in the Sugar Bowl” and co-wrote two songs published by Starday Music, “Tragic Highway” and “A Heart Never Knows.” Sanders contributed the instrumental “Flying High.” The other songs are Charlie Moore’s “Rebel Soldier,” Teddy and Doyle Wilburn’s “Little Home in Tennessee,” Bud Landress’s “Picture on the Wall,” and “Camping in Canaan’s Land,” credited to E. Bartlett and Albert E. Brumley. Webco Records reissued the album on LP in 1986.
Tracklist
- 1 Picture On The Wall 2:57
- 2 Flying High 2:37
- 3 Mary Dear 4:16
- 4 Letter Edged In Black 2:45
- 5 Little Home In Tennessee 3:04
- 6 Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior 3:38
- 7 I Dipped In The Sugar Bowl 2:37
- 8 Rebel Soldier 3:56
- 9 Tragic Highway 2:21
- 10 I Never Will Marry alt version 4:46
- 11 A Heart Never Knows 3:46
- 12 Camping In Caanan's Land 2:37
