Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys
How Mountain Girls Can Love
“How Mountain Girls Can Love” was written by Carter Stanley and first recorded by The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1958. The song is one of the more upbeat numbers in the Stanley Brothers catalog — a mountain courtship song with a driving banjo break and a bright lead vocal — and it became one of their most-loved performances.
An unusual wrinkle: the published songwriter credit on the recording lists “Ruby Rakes” rather than Carter Stanley. Ruby Rakes was the legal name of Ruby Rakes Eubanks, Carter Stanley’s half-sister, who lived in Michigan. Carter used her name on multiple King Records-era song credits as a publishing workaround — routing the writer’s royalties around the King label’s house publishing rather than have them retained by King’s publishing arm. The arrangement was a financial maneuver, not a denial of authorship; the songs on which “Ruby Rakes” appears as writer are now generally understood to be Carter Stanley’s work.
The song crossed into the broader bluegrass repertoire through Stanley-tradition acts and through the Grateful Dead, who recorded a version in their Old & In the Way bluegrass-side-project orbit. It remains a jam-session standard and one of the most reliable upbeat Stanley Brothers songs to call.
