“I Don’t Want Your Rambling Letters” was recorded by the Stanley Brothers on 28 January 1963 at King Studio in Cincinnati. Carter Stanley sang lead and played guitar, Ralph Stanley sang the tenor part and played banjo, and Curley Lambert, Ralph Mayo and Vernon Derrick were in the band. King issued it that March on the LP Folk Concert (King 834), and again in April 1967 as a single, King 45 6089, backed with “Hills of Roan County.”
The label credit reads N. Nath, R. Starr and G.C. Redd. Discogs identifies “N. Nath” as Nathaniel Montague and “R. Starr” as an alias of Ray Pennington, a singer and songwriter who worked at King Records as a producer and A&R man and, according to his Wikipedia biography, produced the Stanley Brothers there. The third name is Gene Redd.
The singer is the one left waiting. He does not want her rambling letters, or her picture in a frame; what he wants is her in person, and he asks her to let him change her name. Her mother has said she will be home soon, her father warned him not to wait, and her sister thinks she still loves him. He tells her he is tired of “long distance kisses” and that love by mail is all so cold.
Later recordings listed in the Bluegrass Discography include Larry Sparks and Dave Evans on the Rebel album Ralph Stanley & Friends Live at the Old Home Place (1983), Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys on Clinch Mountain Boys Reunion (Stanley Tone, 1997), and Nathan Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, who recorded it as “Rambling Letters” on The Legacy Continues (2013).
