Folk Festival cover

Folk Festival

The Stanley Brothers

Album · 2001 · Stanley Tone ST-CD 5003

Folk Festival is a live album of the Stanley Brothers at the University of Chicago Folk Festival, issued in 2001 on the Stanley Tone label (ST-CD 5003). Thirty-five of its tracks were recorded over three days, 3, 4 and 5 February 1961, and nine on 29 January 1965.

The 1961 band was Carter Stanley on guitar, Ralph Stanley on banjo, Curley Lambert on mandolin and Vernon Derrick on fiddle, with Chick Stripling on bass on the first two days. Stripling also takes part in comedy routines and sings lead on “Johnson Had an Old Gray Mule.” The program mixes instrumentals such as “Old Joe Clark,” “Cripple Creek” and “Chicken Reel” with songs including “Orange Blossom Special,” “Rank Strangers,” “Nine Pound Hammer” and “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow,” and Lambert sings lead on “I Know What It Means to Be Lonesome” and “Wreck of the Old 97.”

By 1965 the group had changed: the final set has Larry Sparks on lead guitar, Harold “Red” Stanley on fiddle and Ray Tate on bass alongside Carter and Ralph. Sparks had joined the Stanley Brothers in 1964. That set includes “How Mountain Girls Can Love,” “Don’t Go Out Tonight,” “Sharecropper’s Son,” “Single Girl, Married Girl” and “Shouting on the Hills of Glory.”

Tracklist

  1. 1 Old Joe Clark alt version 3:56
  2. 2 Orange Blossom Special alt version 2:56
  3. 3 I Know What it Means to Be Lonesome alt version 2:16
  4. 4 Cripple Creek alt version 2:18
  5. 5 Gonna Paint the Town alt version 1:49
  6. 6 The window up above 2:53
  7. 7 Sunny Side of the Mountain alt version 2:32
  8. 8 Comedy with Chick Striping 7:05
  9. 9 Chicken reel 3:19
  10. 10 Rank Stranger alt version 3:08
  11. 11 How far to Little Rock 2:42
  12. 12 Old Joe Clark 0:27
  13. 13 Turkey in the Straw alt version 3:09
  14. 14 Black Mountain blues 2:53
  15. 15 Wreck of the Old 97 alt version 2:30
  16. 16 Jack and May 3:13
  17. 17 Cumberland Gap alt version 3:06
  18. 18 Jenny Lynn alt version 2:52
  19. 19 The Story of the Lawson Family alt version 2:32
  20. 20 Comedy with Chick Stripling 2:13
  21. 21 Johnson had an old gray mule 2:03
  22. 22 Chicken reel 3:06
  23. 23 Nine Pound Hammer alt version 2:55
  24. 24 I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow alt version 2:55
  25. 25 Come all you tenderhearted 4:11
  26. 26 Sally Goodin alt version 3:19
  27. 27 Long Journey Home alt version 3:04
  28. 28 East Virginia Blues alt version 2:35
  29. 29 Big Tilda
  30. 30 Dream of a Miner’s Child alt version 2:54
  31. 31 Angel Band alt version 2:15
  32. 32 Wicked Path of Sin alt version 2:38
  33. 33 Little Birdie alt version 1:59
  34. 34 How far to Little Rock
  35. 35 Rabbit in the Log alt version 2:40
  36. 36 How Mountain Girls Can Love alt version 2:04
  37. 37 Cacklin' hen
  38. 38 When you and I were young, Maggie
  39. 39 Don't go out tonight
  40. 40 Sharecropper’s Son alt version
  41. 41 I'm a man of constant sorrow
  42. 42 Single Girl Married Girl alt version 2:46
  43. 43 Shouting on the Hills of Glory alt version 2:47
  44. 44 Cumberland Gap

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