Musicians
- Carter Stanley — Lead Vocals, Guitar
- George Shuffler — Baritone Vocals, Guitar
- Earl Taylor — Mandolin
- Chick Stripling — Bass
- Ralph Stanley — Tenor Vocals
- Vernon McIntyre
“Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” is a gospel song generally credited to R. Fisher Boyce, a Tennessee farmer and part-time songwriter, who is said to have written it in the late 1930s — by one account composing in the quiet of the barn at milking time, away from a houseful of children.
Boyce sold the song outright to a gospel publishing house, where Adger M. Pace arranged it for the Vaughan organization’s radio quartet; because of that, Pace was long miscredited as its author, and when the song was printed in 1940 the two men appeared as joint composers. It draws on the Nativity image of the star over Bethlehem, asking that same light to guide the believer home.
The song crossed readily into bluegrass gospel, where its gentle melody suits close harmony. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys recorded it on their 1977 album Clinch Mountain Gospel, and it has become a standard of both Christmas and year-round sacred sets.
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