Daybreak in Dixie

The session came during a short-lived Mercury–Starday arrangement, and Starday first released it, in August 1959, on the compilation Banjo in the Hills under the title “Banjo in the Hills,” and again in November 1959 on the Stanley Brothers’ Mountain Song Favorites as “Ralph’s Banjo Special.” Mercury’s own LP Hard Times, issued in November 1963, is described as the first to carry it under its proper name.

The Stanleys recorded a second, different tune under the same title on 11 July 1960 at the King studio in Cincinnati, credited to Ralph Stanley, with Vernon Derrick on fiddle, Curley Lambert on lead guitar, George Shuffler on bass and no mandolin. In 1971 Keith Whitley, Ricky Skaggs on mandolin, Ralph Stanley, Curly Ray Cline and Jack Cooke recorded the Napier tune at R. D. Homer Studio in Clinton, Maryland, for Rebel’s 2nd Generation Bluegrass.