Cry from the Cross is a 1971 gospel album by Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, issued on Rebel (SLP 1499). It was recorded on 22 and 23 February 1971 at R. D. Homer’s studio in Clinton, Maryland, with Roy Homer engineering and Charles R. Freeland producing. The band had Stanley on banjo, Roy Lee Centers on guitar, Curly Ray Cline on fiddle and Jack Cooke on bass, along with Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley. Both had joined Stanley around 1970; Skaggs plays mandolin and a second fiddle, and Whitley plays lead guitar. Ed Ferris replaced Cooke on bass for two songs cut on the first day.
Centers sings lead on eight of the twelve songs, with Stanley on tenor and Cooke on baritone. They include Stanley’s title song and “Death Is Only a Dream,” the Stanley Brothers’ “You’re Drifting On” and “Will He Wait a Little Longer,” and “Stairway to Heaven,” which Stanley wrote with Bill Grant. Stanley takes the lead on the other four. “Bright Morning Star” and his own “Sinner Man” are four-part vocals over Centers’s guitar alone, with Cooke on tenor, Centers on baritone and Whitley singing bass. On “I Am the Man Thomas,” which Stanley wrote with Larry Sparks, Skaggs sings tenor.
Rebel reissued the album on CD in 2001; a Japanese pressing on Seven Seas had appeared in 1975.
Tracklist
- 1 Cry From the Cross Source Recording 2:48
- 2 You're Drifting On 1:55
- 3 Will He Wait A Little Longer 2:08
- 4 Bright Morning Star alt version 2:31
- 5 Death Is Only A Dream 2:47
- 6 Come On Little Children 1:34
- 7 Take Your Shoes Off Moses 2:16
- 8 Stairway To Heaven 2:35
- 9 I Am the Man Thomas Source Recording 1:56
- 10 Step Out In The Sunshine 1:38
- 11 Sinner Man 2:32
- 12 Two Coats Source Recording 2:40
