“Another Night” was written by Jack “Hobo Jack” Adkins, born in Regina, Kentucky, in 1922. He picked up the nickname from rambling around the country, worked as a coal miner and a carpenter, served in the Navy, and played on Kentucky radio stations from about 1946. He wrote “Another Night” late in the 1950s and recorded it with his Kentucky Pals as the B-side of “Our Lady of Angels,” his song about a Chicago school fire, on Big A 5. Praguefrank’s discography dates that session to 1958 or 1959 and lists Kenny Baker on fiddle. In 1960 Adkins moved to Cincinnati, where he set up a recording studio and started his own Adco label.
The song is told by a man alone in a cabin on a windy night. His wife has left him and their little children for another man, and the children are asleep and do not yet know their mother is gone. He sings of tossing and turning, dreaming of her, and wondering what he will tell the children when they wake.
The Stanley Brothers recorded “Another Night” in July 1959 at radio station WNER in Live Oak, Florida, for Starday, with Carter Stanley singing lead, Ralph Stanley on tenor and banjo, Bill Napier on mandolin, Chubby Anthony on fiddle and Johnnie Bonds on bass. Starday issued it on the LP Mountain Song Favorites Featuring 5-String Banjo in November 1959, and it was repackaged in later Starday and Gusto collections.
Alison Krauss and Union Station recorded it for Every Time You Say Goodbye (Rounder, 1992), with Krauss singing lead and playing fiddle, Tim Stafford on guitar, Ron Block on banjo, Adam Steffey on mandolin and Barry Bales on bass. Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder included it on Bluegrass Rules (Rounder, 1998), with Skaggs singing lead and Paul Brewster on tenor.
