Shadows of the Past cover

Shadows of the Past

The Stanley Brothers

Album · 1981 · Copper Creek CCLP 0101

Shadows of the Past was issued in 1981 as Copper Creek CCLP 0101, with Gary B. Reid among its producers. It collects live Stanley Brothers performances recorded between 1956 and 1962. Most of the tapes were made by Bill Offenbacher; the Oberlin College material came from the college’s Folk Music Club. The shows include New River Ranch in Rising Sun, Maryland, Silver Creek Ranch in Paris, Virginia, Valley View Park in Hellam, Pennsylvania, Melody Ranch in Glen Burnie, Maryland, and Wilder Lounge at Oberlin College in Ohio on 17 March 1962. The album opens with a short introduction by Bill Napier.

Carter Stanley sings lead and plays guitar and Ralph Stanley plays banjo and sings tenor throughout, but the rest of the band changes with the date. The 1957 tracks have Chubby Anthony on fiddle with Curley Lambert or Bill Napier on mandolin and Jack Cooke or Lindy Clear on bass. “They Sleep Together, Now at Rest” (1958) has Napier on mandolin, Ralph Mayo and Pete Kuykendall on fiddles and Al Elliot on bass. The Oberlin tracks feature George Shuffler on lead guitar and Chick Stripling on bass, and Birch Monroe joins in on bass vocal on “John Henry.”

The repertoire is songs the brothers did not record commercially. “Going to the Races” and “Thinking of the Old Days” were written by Carter, and Reid’s liner notes identify “Just Another Broken Heart” as a Carter Family song and “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow” as patterned after the Browns. “I Hope You Have Learned” had been recorded by Bill Monroe with Jimmy Martin and issued in 1954. The comedy routines of a Stanley Brothers show are represented by “The Propaganda Routine,” a spoken piece with Carter Stanley and Chick Stripling, and the sound quality varies from track to track.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Going to the Races alt version 1:56
  2. 2 Just another broken heart 2:32
  3. 3 I Hope You Have Learned alt version 2:31
  4. 4 Here today and gone tomorrow 2:18
  5. 5 Thinking of the old days 3:10
  6. 6 Lonesome Road Blues alt version 2:28
  7. 7 John Henry alt version 3:12
  8. 8 White House Blues alt version 2:12
  9. 9 They’re at Rest Together alt version 3:28
  10. 10 Going to Georgia 2:04
  11. 11 The propaganda routine 3:00
  12. 12 Katy Cline 1:59
  13. 13 Long Journey Home alt version 3:04

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