Hylo Brown
I’ve Waited as Long as I Can
Single: Just Any Old Love (1960) Bluegrass Discography
“I’ve Waited as Long as I Can” is associated with Tony Rice’s 1988 Rounder album Native American, the version associated with this entry. The album marked Rice’s continued exploration of harmonically open material outside the strict traditional-bluegrass register; the title track, several originals, and material drawn from outside the usual bluegrass songbook gave the album its distinct mid-period-Rice character.
The song was written and first recorded by Hylo Brown, the Kentucky-born singer and guitarist who was one of the key transitional figures between the honky-tonk and bluegrass sounds of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The songwriter credit is not consistently documented across publicly available discographic sources for this particular track. The song appears among the album’s mix of Rice originals, collaborator-written pieces, and outside material; the Rounder CD liner notes are the firmest reference for the actual writer attribution.
The lyric is a worn-down breakup text: the narrator at the end of his patience, the relationship long past saving, finally walking away rather than continuing to wait. Rice’s understated vocal phrasing — restrained, faintly weary — is the element most often referenced; the song works as a moderate-tempo singer’s piece in the open harmonic register Rice favoured during this period.
