Stanley Brothers – The King Years 1961-1965 / Ralph Stanley – Poor Rambler (His Complete King and Gusto Recordings)

It’s been ten long years since the release of The Stanley Brothers: The Early Starday King Years 1958-1961, and though the delay has been aggravating (to say the least), it’s a blessing to finally have its 4-CD companion set available. For one thing, virtually all of the commercial recordings of the Brothers are now in print, and the new set has a healthy portion of the highlights, hitherto available, if at all, only on secondhand LPs or shoddy CD compilations. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of these with the new 3-CD Ralph Stanley set Poor Rambler, which includes the earliest recordings he made as a solo artist, illuminates a distinction too often blurred by references to “the Stanley sound.” Ralph’s turn to a more old-time-flavored “mountain” style surely reflected his artistic wishes, but as a sequential listening to both sets reveals, it was no less certainly a conscious, deliberate effort.

The 1960s were a time of trials for the Stanleys, who for the most part enjoyed neither the commercial success of Opry members such as Flatt & Scruggs nor the veneration increasingly given to Bill Monroe as the “father of bluegrass.” Unwilling to move to Nashville, and recording for an independent label, they had difficulty reaching the country music market. At the same time, despite the support of folk revivalists such as Mike Seeger and albums including Folk Song Festival and Folk Concert, their country stylings, their eclectic material, and the gaudy, cut-rate commercial trappings of their King LPs made it hard for them to find more than a tenuous foothold in folk circles. The result was that their music appealed mostly to a small, albeit intensely devoted audience in and around their native Appalachia, or those transplanted to industrial centers such as southwest Ohio.

The material on The King Years 1961-1965 ranges widely, reflecting that audience’s longings and the pressures to which it was subjected, as well as the label’s interest in reaching beyond it. There are plenty of gospel numbers, for instance, from ancient songs such as “Oh, Death” (given a full-band, stop-start reading with verses that move along at an almost jaunty pace) to new compositions such as Ralph’s recitation “Prayer Of A Truck Driver’s Son”. Lengthy traditional ballads such as “Hills Of Roan County” rub elbows with modern country ones such as “Don’t Cheat In Our Home Town”, written by producer Ray Pennington. In a demonstration of the consequences of economic marginality, backing musicians appear and disappear and reappear throughout the set, more than occasionally playing several instruments on a single session.

Yet despite the variety, the Brothers’ sound remained remarkably constant, built around their careworn, haunting vocal duet, Carter’s booming rhythm guitar, and Ralph’s stolid banjo work. With outstanding notes by Stanley expert Gary Reid and sonic quality far superior to the many compilations the label has flung toward the discount racks over the years, this collection is indispensable for avid bluegrass fans.

The same is largely true of the Poor Rambler collection, though the bizarre decision to spread material from a wonderful, if peripheral, 1980 album Ralph did with Jimmy Martin (including several previously unissued cuts) across the three discs calls from some tedious corrective swapping to re-create the original sequence. Indeed, perhaps the duo effort should have been reissued separately, though in the end it’s rewarding that it’s been reissued at all.

Given Ralph’s later propensity for reworking material from the Stanley Brothers catalog, one of the chief points of interest here is the introduction of a considerable number of new songs — one of the more immediately obvious signs he was anxious to make his own mark. Adding the youthful Larry Sparks on lead vocals and lead guitar to supplement members of the final incarnation of the Brothers’ band — including fiddler Curly Ray Cline, who would remain with him into the 1990s — Ralph broke as sharply as he could from the sound he and Carter had created.

Though he retained the lead guitar that was such a prominent part of the Brothers’ approach, it was quickly recontextualized in a more archaic-sounding setting. The country feel of songs such as “It’s Alright If That’s The Way You Feel” was abandoned, even if the songs themselves would later reappear; and Ralph’s tenor was brought to the fore, singing songs on which Carter might earlier have taken the lead. What was left would become the basis for a career that has now lasted far longer than the Stanley Brothers’ days ever did.