Old-Time Pickin': A Clawhammer Banjo Collection is a 2008 Rebel Records retrospective (REB-CD-7520) presenting eighteen tracks of Ralph Stanley's clawhammer banjo work spanning nearly three decades of Rebel recordings, including nine previously unreleased performances. Stanley learned clawhammer banjo from his mother at age eleven and maintained the old-time frailing style throughout his career alongside the three-finger approach his brother Carter favored. The Clinch Mountain Boys who back him across these sessions — Jack Cooke, James Allen Shelton, James Price, and Ralph Stanley II — provide the spare, mountain-rooted context that distinguishes Stanley's clawhammer playing from the mainstream bluegrass banjo tradition. The album serves as a companion document to his broader catalog, preserving a pre-Scruggs technique he kept alive against the current of the instrument's evolution.
Tracklist
- 1 Rocky Island alt version 1:51
- 2 Shout Little Lulie 1:58
- 3 Battle Ax 3:13
- 4 City Lights 2:12
- 5 Cripple Creek alt version 2:18
- 6 I've Got A Mule To Ride 1:55
- 7 Old McDonald/Cindy 4:03
- 8 Shady Grove alt version 2:59
- 9 John Henry alt version 3:12
- 10 Little Birdie alt version 1:59
- 11 Cuttin' The Cornbread 1:53
- 12 Bound to Ride alt version 1:45
- 13 Married Life Blues 2:24
- 14 Black Eyed Susie alt version 2:03
- 15 Kentucky Shine 1:45
- 16 True Blue Bill 1:54
- 17 Dixieland (My Old Home Town) 2:10
- 18 Old Time Pickin' 1:46
- 19 Black-Eyed Suzie alt version Ralph Stanley