Stay Their Arms cover

Stay Their Arms

The Primitive Quartet

Album · 2023 · Mountain Home Music Company

Stay Their Arms is the last set of studio recordings by The Primitive Quartet, released on digital platforms on 17 March 2023 by Mountain Home Music Company. Announcing it, the group said: “After 50 years of music ministry, our touring days are coming to an end.” Its ten tracks include two songs from the older gospel repertoire, Albert E. Brumley’s “If We Never Meet Again” and R. E. Winsett’s “Will You Meet Me Over Yonder,” and the rest of the program centers on new songs. The arrangements use mandolin, guitar, dobro, fiddle and bass alongside the voices.

The group began in 1973, when two sets of Western North Carolina brothers, Reagan and Larry Riddle and Furman and Norman Wilson, took a guitar and a mandolin on a fishing trip and discovered harmony singing. They sang at area churches as the Riddle-Wilson Quartet until 1978, when they chose a full-time music ministry, Furman Wilson left, the Riddles’ brother Mike joined, and they became The Primitive Quartet. Randy Fox, born in Indiana, joined in 1986; Jeff Tolbert joined about a decade later, first as an instrumentalist and then as a singer after Norman Wilson died in 2014. The group also made its Hominy Valley Singing Grounds in Candler, North Carolina, a home for gospel singing events.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Stay Their Arms 3:00
  2. 2 I'm So Glad for a Place Called Heaven 2:32
  3. 3 Can I Tell You About Jesus 2:49
  4. 4 He Won't Turn Away 2:06
  5. 5 Joseph From a Pit to a Palace 2:35
  6. 6 That Sweet Land of God Somewhere 3:17
  7. 7 When Jesus Gathers in His Hope Chest 3:03
  8. 8 If We Never Meet Again alt version 3:08
  9. 9 Now I Am Free 2:43
  10. 10 Will You Meet Me Over Yonder 2:15

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