“Clinch Mountain Backstep” is a banjo tune by Ralph Stanley, and its title echoes the name of the band he led with his brother Carter, the Clinch Mountain Boys. The Stanley Brothers first recorded it at the King studio in Cincinnati on 1 October 1958, during two days of sessions that also produced “Train 45” and “Midnight Ramble.” Carter Stanley played guitar, Ralph banjo, Bill Napier mandolin, Ralph Mayo fiddle and Al Elliott bass. King issued it in March 1959 on the LP The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys (King 615), and on an EP named after the tune.
The King release credited the tune to Ruby Rakes, with publishing by Lois Music. Ruby Rakes Eubanks was a half-sister of the Stanleys, and the rights to a number of the brothers’ songs were assigned to her, so her name on a label does not identify the composer. Later issues gave Ralph Stanley’s name. The Fiddler’s Companion, Andrew Kuntz’s tune reference, lists it as an old-time breakdown composed and recorded by Ralph Stanley.
Other bands took it up. In 1964 the Kentucky Colonels opened their World Pacific album Appalachian Swing! with it, a lead-guitar arrangement featuring Clarence White, with Roland White on mandolin and Billy Ray Lathum on banjo. The Stanley Brothers still had it in their show in October 1966, weeks before Carter’s death, when they were taped at Bean Blossom, Indiana. Ralph kept it after Carter died: it appears on his 1971 Live in Japan set and on Play Requests (Rebel, 1972). Old-time players recorded it as well: Bob Carlin recorded it for his 1980 Rounder album Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo, from the playing of Tracy Schwarz, who called the tune “Liza Jane.”
