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Jim Lauderdale - Whisper

(BNA 07863-66996-2) 1997

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This album features Ralph and The Clinch Mountain Boys on the final track, I'll Lead You Home. The remainder is decent 'honky-tonk' style country/rock/pop.

I'll Lead You Home was recorded at Masterlink Studios in Nashville, during the sessions for Clinch Mountain Country, which also featured a guest spot by Jim Lauderdale. It is quite a decent number, although Ralph's harmony vocals are a bit low in the mix, and it sounds a bit out of place after listening to half an hour of twangy guitars and loud drums.

Co-producer Blake Chancey:- "Jim's from the Carolina area. He's a big bluegrass fan. He'd been working with Ralph Stanley for years. Jim wrote 'I'll Lead You Home'. He called me up and said, 'Blake, I've got this song. I want to get Ralph Stanley to do it.' We started looking at the logistics. Ralph was in town making this compilation album with all these huge guest artists."
"They said, 'While we're doing this, why don't you come over and cut with Ralph's band?' It was a cool moment for me. I'd never really worked in that type of music. Everything was cut live; everybody playing in a circle. They both sang it at the same time, looking at each other. It was a really cool thing. Lauderdale put that together."
"We walked in, and actually Jim had a real slow, kind of loping version of 'I'll Lead You Home'. Ralph goes, 'Jim, check out the way we've worked it up.' It was an up-tempo, trainy kind of beat thing. And that was pretty much the way we did it, because they worked it up that way."^[1]

Personnel on the track are:

• Jim Lauderdale: guitar, lead vocal
• Ralph Stanley: vocal
• Jack Cooke: bass
• James Price: fiddle
• John Rigsby: mandolin
• James Alan Shelton: guitar
• Steve Sparkman: banjo
• Ralph II Stanley: guitar

^{[1] Michael Jarrett's book 'Producing Country: The Inside Story of the Great Recordings' - see Google Books search}