The Footsteps of Tradition (King Bluegrass KB-527) was released in 1974 by Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers. Sparks, from Lebanon, Ohio, had played guitar with the Stanley Brothers and then with Ralph Stanley before forming the Lonesome Ramblers in late 1969. The album was cut at Lemco Sound Studio in Lexington, Kentucky, for King Bluegrass, a Cincinnati label, with Robert Trout credited as producer.
The lineup is Sparks on guitar and lead vocal, Dave Evans on banjo with harmony vocals, Wendy Miller on mandolin with harmony vocals, Ralph “Joe” Meadows on fiddle and Art Wydner on bass. Seven of the tracks were re-recordings of songs from Sparks’s Starday LP Ramblin’ Bluegrass, remade after Starday’s financial difficulties in 1973-74 left that record unavailable. Several songs come from the Stanley repertoire: “Think of What You’ve Done,” credited to Ralph and Carter Stanley, and “I Am the Man, Thomas,” which Sparks wrote with Ralph Stanley. The set also includes Hank Williams’s “Six More Miles,” Bob Wills’s “Faded Love” and the instrumental “Kentucky Chimes,” written by Wendy Miller.
Tracklist
- 1 Think of What You’ve Done alt version 2:00
- 2 Life of Sorrow 2:30
- 3 Brown-Eyed Darling 2:50
- 4 Waltz of the Wind 2:48
- 5 The Old Spinning Wheel alt version 4:04
- 6 Be Nobody's Darling But Mine 2:51
- 7 Lonesome and Blue 2:05
- 8 Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss alt version 2
- 9 Rock Hearts alt version 2:37
- 10 Cannonball Blues 2:11
- 11 If That’s the Way You Feel alt version 2:21
- 12 Timberline 3:17
- 13 Heart Trouble 3:10
- 14 Come Back Darling alt version 2:39
- 15 I Am the Man Thomas alt version
