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“Little Glass of Wine” is an early original of the Stanley Brothers, recorded around the start of 1948 and released that spring on the small Rich-R-Tone label. It was among the first songs the Virginia brothers recorded, and its local popularity on radio helped them win a contract with Columbia Records later that year.
The song is a poisoning ballad. Carter Stanley set new words to an older melody, drawing on the grim tradition of British and Appalachian murder ballads: a young man, in a fit of jealous madness, gives his sweetheart a poisoned glass of wine, then drinks it himself, and the two die together. That dark, doom-laden story, sung in the brothers’ high mountain harmony, gave the song lasting power.
“Little Glass of Wine” became one of the cornerstones of the early Stanley Brothers repertoire and a much-covered piece in the bluegrass tradition. The version heard here is the Stanley Brothers’ own original recording.
