Love and Wealth · Lonesome Hearted Blues

Carl Story (1916–1995) was born in Lenoir, North Carolina, and played fiddle, guitar and clawhammer banjo. In 1934 he formed the Rambling Mountaineers with banjo player Johnny Whisnant and guitarists Dudley Watson and Ed McMahan, and they worked on radio in Hickory, Spartanburg and Asheville. Sessions for ARC in 1939 and OKeh in 1940 were never issued. In 1942 he fiddled in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys before going into the Navy. After the war he re-formed the band on WNOX’s Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round in Knoxville, and the governor of Oklahoma later dubbed him “the Father of Bluegrass Gospel Music.”

His first released records came from Mercury, with Murray Nash producing. The sessions of 14 September 1947, probably at radio station WROL in Knoxville, had Carl Thacker on electric guitar, Claude Boone on bass, and Clyde and Hack Johnson singing harmony. Mercury issued “I’ve Found a Hiding Place” and “He’s Waiting There” that November. Sacred and secular sides were mixed from the start: “I Watched You Walk Away” and “Tennessee Border” came out in January 1949. From 1948 Red Rector played mandolin, and Boone, who stayed with Story into the 1960s, sang the bass parts. The sessions moved between Knoxville and Castle Studio in Nashville, and one in February 1951 was probably held at Nash’s house in Knoxville. By 1952 Dee Kilpatrick was producing, and Ray Atkins had joined on dobro, as on “My Lord’s Gonna Lead Me Out” and “Are You Afraid to Die?” (August 1952). Mercury went on issuing those 1952 recordings until 1955, including “Where the Soul Never Dies” with “Angels Rock Me to Sleep” in June 1954.

Meanwhile Story had moved to Columbia. Don Law produced his sessions at Castle Studio from June 1953, with a larger band that included Rector on banjo, Jerry Rivers on fiddle and Ernie Newton on bass. The first Columbia single was “Love and Wealth” with “Lonesome Hearted Blues” that July, and the last session, in March 1955, had Chet Atkins on guitar and Dale Potter on fiddle.

Back on Mercury from 1955 to 1957, he recorded at RCA Victor’s Nashville studio and Bradley’s. The 1957 dates, produced by Don Pierce, brought in Bud Brewster on banjo, Willie Brewster on mandolin and Tater Tate on fiddle. There were banjo instrumentals too, such as “Mocking Banjo” and, with Bobby Thompson, “Fire on the Banjo.” Starday recorded him from October 1958 at radio station WFLW in Monticello, Kentucky, with the Brewsters, Boone and Tate. The first Starday single, “Old Country Baptizing” with “Angel Band,” came out in November 1958, and his Starday singles ran until 1964.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.