“Steppin’ Stones,” also written “Stepping Stones,” is credited to Paul Williams and Jimmy Martin. Williams was a member of Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys until 1962. Martin recorded it for Decca in Nashville on 11 July 1961, at the Bradley Film and Recording Studio, with Owen Bradley producing. Paul Craft played banjo, Junior Huskey bass and Buddy Harman drums, and Lois Johnson and Kirk Hansard sang the added vocal parts. It was issued in 1962 on Martin’s Decca LP Country Music Time.
The lyric turns a heartbreak song around one image. The singer’s memories of yesterday are stepping stones that pave the way to heartaches over a love he cannot forget, and he wishes he had never helped lay them: the lies, the moments sad and sweet, and the nights of misery and bitter tears all become stones along a lonely path of regret that, in the last verse, shows him his mistakes.
The song is counted among Martin’s best-known records of the 1960s, along with “Hit Parade of Love,” “Sophronie,” “Tennessee” and “Widow Maker.” Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys recorded it on their 1975 album, and Laurie Lewis included it on her 1999 album Laurie Lewis and Her Bluegrass Pals.
