“I Worship You” is a gospel song from the Stanley Brothers, the Virginia duo of Carter and Ralph Stanley whose mountain-rooted harmony singing was central to early bluegrass. They introduced the song on a single during their Mercury Records years in the mid-1950s, a period that produced much of their most admired work.
Sacred material was woven through the Stanley Brothers’ music from the beginning, drawn from the Primitive Baptist singing of their southwest Virginia upbringing. “I Worship You” is a song of plain devotion, its lyric an act of praise carried by the close, keening harmony that was the brothers’ signature.
Like the rest of the Stanley Brothers’ gospel catalog, the song passed into the wider bluegrass repertoire, where its simple message and quartet-friendly arrangement suited the sacred portion of a stage program. It remains part of the deep body of gospel song the brothers helped carry into bluegrass.
