Album
Musicians
- Roy Lee Centers — Lead Vocals, Guitar
- Ralph Stanley — Banjo
- "Curly" Ray Cline — Fiddle
- Jack Cooke — Bass
“Ridin’ That Midnight Train” was recorded by the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys for Starday on 16 July 1959 at Radio Station WNER in Live Oak, Florida. Carter Stanley sang lead and played guitar, Ralph Stanley sang tenor and played banjo, Bill Napier played mandolin, Chubby Anthony fiddle and Al Elliott bass. It was released in November 1959 on the Starday LP Mountain Song Favorites Featuring 5-String Banjo and in May 1960 as the other side of the single “A Little at a Time.”
Sources disagree on who wrote it. The Starday issues credit R. Stanley, and SecondHandSongs credits Ralph Stanley, but Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder’s 1998 album Bluegrass Rules lists Carter Stanley as the composer.
The words are those of a man leaving a woman who is never satisfied no matter what he does. He regrets ever falling in love with her, since she loves another man, and he rides the midnight train with his head hanging low, expecting the blues to follow him wherever he goes.
Ralph Stanley sang it again as a duet with Iris DeMent on Clinch Mountain Sweethearts (Rebel, 2001), recorded at Masterlink Studio in Nashville, and Peter Rowan included it on Carter Stanley’s Eyes (Rebel, 2018).
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