I Saw the Light with Some Help from My Friends was released by Columbia (KC 31354) in April 1972. It was recorded at Columbia Recording Studio in Nashville with Don Law producing: the title song on 12 August 1971, “Lonesome and a Long Way from Home” and “Never Ending Song of Love” on 31 August 1971, and the remaining tracks between August 1971 and January 1972. Earl Scruggs plays banjo, with his sons Randy on guitar, Gary on bass and Steve on keyboards, Norman Blake on dobro, Vassar Clements on fiddle, Bob Wilson on piano, and Jody Maphis or Karl Himmel on drums.
The guests are the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (Jeff Hanna, Jimmy Ibbotson, John McEuen and Jimmie Fadden), Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie and Tracy Nelson. Guthrie and Nelson appear on the original pressing under the names Arloff Boguslavaki and Stacey Belson, because they had not been cleared for release by their own label, Reprise. A review of the 2005 reissue singles out Nelson’s “Motherless Child Blues” and her duet with Ronstadt on “Rock Salt and Nails.”
The eleven songs include Merle Haggard’s “Silver Wings,” two by Michael Nesmith (“Some of Shelley’s Blues” and “Propinquity”), “Ring of Fire,” and Hank Williams’s “I Saw the Light,” which closes the record. The 2005 reissue on Legacy (CK 77626) added three tracks: “Fireball Mail,” “Tramp on the Street” and “The Cure.”
Tracklist
- 1 Lonesome and a Long Way from Home 2:35
- 2 Silver Wings (with Linda Ronstadt) 3:27
- 3 It's a Picture from Life's Other Side 3:38
- 4 Motherless Child Blues 4:29
- 5 Some of Shelley's Blues 2:45
- 6 Never Ending Song of Love alt version 3:20
- 7 Rock Salt and Nails alt version 3:22
- 8 The Banks of the Ohio 3:27
- 9 Ring of Fire Source Recording 2:12
- 10 Propinquity 2:19
- 11 Fireball Mail alt version 2:14
- 12 Tramp On the Street 3:27
- 13 The Cure 2:09
- 14 I Saw the Light alt version 2:43
