Marion Easterling wrote “When I Wake Up to Sleep No More.” Born in Chilton County, Alabama, in 1910, he signed a five-year contract with the Stamps-Baxter Music Company in 1938, and the song carries a 1944 Stamps-Baxter copyright. In 1974 the Inspirations’ recording of it stood at number one on the Singing News gospel chart for seven months, from April through October and again in December.
The lyric looks ahead to a morning when the singer wakes for the last time. He hears Gabriel’s trumpet, rises to meet the redeemer with a shout, receives a new body in an instant, leaves all troubles and trials behind, and goes to the city on high. The refrain repeats the title phrase as the moment of waking. The Expository Songs database lists 1 Corinthians 15 as the passage the lyric draws on most directly.
The Carl Tipton Show recorded it at Monument Studio in Nashville for the Skylite Country album Sunday Singing (1975), the Marshall Family put it on Requests (Rebel, 1976), and the Bass Mountain Boys recorded it at Threshold Recording in Roanoke for All Together Now (Threshold, 1987). Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys cut it at Masterlink Studios in Nashville in 1997 for Clinch Mountain Country (Rebel, released 19 May 1998), with Stanley singing lead, Judy Marshall the tenor, David Marshall harmony and Shelton Feazell the bass part.
