Side by Side, released on Rebel in 2013, is the only studio album to pair Dr. Ralph Stanley with his son Ralph Stanley II as co-equal lead vocalists. The core band — John Rigsby on mandolin and fiddle, Steve Sparkman on banjo, and Randall Hibbitts on bass — were all Clinch Mountain Boys, giving the record a direct continuity with the elder Stanley's long-running ensemble, and Junior Sisk appears as a guest vocalist. Conceived as a deliberate passing-of-the-torch document, the album took on added weight after Ralph Stanley's death in June 2016, standing among his final studio recordings and a clear-eyed account of his weathered late-career voice set beside his son's. Stanley always called his music old-time mountain music rather than bluegrass, and these performances — spare, modal, and unhurried — bear that self-description out.
Tracklist
- 1 Carolina Mountain Home alt version
- 2 Don’t Step Over an Old Love alt version 2:51
- 3 Six Months Ain’t Long alt version 2:47
