Singing Sixteen Years, recorded in March 1986 at River Track Studios in Virginia, was originally a cassette-only release on the local River Tracks label — 500 to 1,000 copies aimed at regional bluegrass distribution. Nearly a decade later Copper Creek Records picked up the tapes and reissued them in 1995 to a broader bluegrass audience; later still, Rounder Records remixed, remastered, and resequenced the material for a wider commercial release. The Clinch Mountain Boys on the sessions included Charlie Sizemore on lead alongside Ralph Stanley's banjo and harmony. The autobiographical title track, written by Lowell Varney, gives the album its frame: a Ralph Stanley reflection on the sixteen years since Carter's death.
Tracklist
- 1 Cotton Eyed Joe alt version 2:32
- 2 That happy night
- 3 Don't wake me up
- 4 I lived in her world
- 5 When You Go Walking After Midnight alt version
- 6 Say Won’t You Be Mine alt version 2:45
- 7 Sixteen years
- 8 Dickenson County breakdown
- 9 Can't you hear the mountains calling
- 10 In Despair alt version 2:12
- 11 Weary heart you stole away
- 12 Little Willie alt version
