Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys
Love Me Darling Just Tonight
Live in Japan (1971) Bluegrass Discography
“Love Me Darling Just Tonight” is a Stanley Brothers vocal feature, first recorded and released by The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1958. The song is credited to Carter Stanley (with secondary credit attached, depending on the source, to “Ruby Rakes” or to other names — “Ruby Rakes” being the documented Stanley Brothers publishing-pseudonym used by Carter for his half-sister, Ruby Rakes Eubanks, as a workaround for King Records publishing arrangements).
The song belongs to the broad family of Stanley Brothers heartbreak vocals from the late-1950s King Records period — tightly arranged, harmony-driven pieces in the Stanley high-lonesome mode that the brothers had perfected by mid-decade. The lyric’s premise — the singer pleading for one more night of love before letting go — sits in the standard country–bluegrass heartbreak idiom but with the particular Carter Stanley emotional economy that distinguished the writing of this period.
“Love Me Darling Just Tonight” became a regular feature in the Stanley Brothers’ working sets and crossed firmly into the bluegrass-vocal repertoire after the brothers’ partnership ended with Carter’s 1966 death. Ralph Stanley continued to perform the song with his Clinch Mountain Boys, and it has been recorded by a long list of subsequent bluegrass acts, including Billy Strings in his contemporary readings of Stanley material.
