“Little Darling Pal of Mine” is a song introduced by the Carter Family, the foundational Virginia trio, who recorded it in 1928. Like much of the family’s material it is credited to A.P. Carter, who gathered and reworked traditional and older popular songs into the Carter repertoire.
The song shares its melody with a small family of country songs — the same tune carries the Carter Family’s “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” and, later, “The Great Speckled Bird” — a melody so durable that it became one of the most reused in early country music. The lyric is a gentle plea of devotion and heartbreak addressed to an absent sweetheart.
From the Carter Family’s recording the song passed into bluegrass. The version heard here is by the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys, from their 1963 album “Folk Concert.”
