Sara, A.P. and Maybelle Carter recorded “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?” for Victor on 10 May 1928, at the company’s studio in Camden, New Jersey. It was their second session for the label, and the same day’s takes included “Wildwood Flower.” Victor issued the song that November on record 21638, backed with “Little Darlin’ Pal of Mine.” The trio cut it again for the American Record Corporation in New York on 9 May 1935, and that version came out on several of ARC’s labels, among them Conqueror, Melotone and Banner.
Later records credit the song to A.P. Carter, but a gospel song with the same title was in print almost two decades before the Carters recorded. John B. Vaughan’s Songs for the Singing, Normal and Literary Schools, published in Athens, Georgia, in 1910, includes “Will You Miss Me?” by the Rev. George Beebe and H. E. McAfee. The Mainly Norfolk folk-song index lists the Carter Family recording under that song (Roud 4440). The Carters’ text belongs to a dying singer who keeps asking one person whether they will feel the loss. He imagines a time when he can no longer kiss that person’s brow and asks whether their love will outlast his death. He also pictures flowers planted on his grave and asks them to come and sit by it when the roses are blooming.
A.P. Carter sang it again on 24 April 1954, with the Phipps Family on a broadcast from the courthouse in Manchester, Kentucky; the performance was later issued on a Mountain Eagle LP. The Stanley Brothers recorded it on 14 December 1963 at Johnny’s Used Cars in Baltimore. Ralph Stanley led the verses and sang tenor on the chorus, Carter Stanley led the chorus, and Henry Dockery and George Shuffler sang baritone and bass. Wango released it in September 1966 on an LP credited to “John’s Country Quartet.” Ralph Stanley returned to it on 30 June 1971 at R.D. Homer & Associates in Clinton, Maryland, for the Rebel album Something Old, Something New, Some of Katy’s Mountain Dew. Roy Lee Centers sang lead, Stanley sang tenor and Keith Whitley sang bass, and Rebel also put the track on a single that August. Red Allen sang it on Bluegrass Reunion (Acoustic Disc, 1992). June Carter Cash included it on Wildwood Flower, produced by John Carter Cash and released by Dualtone in September 2003.
