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Ralph Stanley - Ralph Stanley Featuring Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley

(One Media Publishing no #) 2010

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This is a variation of the appaling Ralph Stanley Featuring Marty Stuart CD-R, but at least on this version the tracks are complete, rather than just being short 1 min. samples.

The CD-R kicks off with the same brief interview as featured on the other CD-R, backed by snippets of Stanley Brothers material, and then has ten live tracks from what sounds like various gigs from the early '70s, with the classic Roy Lee Centers line-up. No personnel are listed but I think Keith and Roy Lee share lead on Take Your Shoes Off Moses; Keith sings lead on Lonesome River and Will You Miss Me; Ricky on Don't Cheat In Our Hometown; Roy Lee on That Lonesome Old Song and Katy Daly; and Ralph of course provides lead on the remainder.^[1]

The CD-R duplicates nine songs with the Ralph Stanley Featuring Marty Stuart CD-R and adds one (Don't Cheat In Our Hometown). One track has also been removed (Stone Walls And Steel Bars) which, as I've said, is just a 1 min or so sample on the other CD-R.

Both are available from Amazon.com as a custom printed CD-R, and at mega-rip off prices elsewhere.

One for hard-core completists... I don't think these versions have been released elsewhere, but if you know otherwise please get in touch via the Contact page... and if anyone has more complete copies of the tapes of course!

NB: The company behind these releases, 'One Media Publishing' is based in the UK and "specialises in acquiring and repackaging nostalgic music and TV programmes from recordings made over the last 90 years".^[2] Further digital re-packages of the material can also be found on Amazon including: 'Man Of Constant Music The Dave Cash Collection' (2011) and 'The Greatest Ralph Stanley' (2012), neither of which add anything new. 'Ralph Stanley Featuring Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley' is the best of a bad bunch.

Thanks to Todd Gracyk for the corrections!

^{[1] The introductions are as follows... If anyone thinks they know the source of any of them, please get in touch via the Contact page:-
Little Birdie has the MC announcing "Here's Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys";
Take Your Shoes Off Moses (mis-titled Takle Your Shoes Off Moses) has the MC announcing "Right here's some awful good Gospel, about as good as you can here... Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, would you give them a nice hand" followed by heavy footsteps as the band enter the stage;
Lonesome River is introduced by Ralph saying "Right here's two young gentleman who're the youngest members of the group. I guess you can probably tell by lookin'. They've been with us now a little better than a year. They do a fine job of singing the old-timers. On the mandolin from Blaine, Kentucky is Ricky Skaggs and on the guitar from Sandy Hook is Keith Whitley. Give 'em a nice hand.";
Poor Rambler is introduced by Roy Lee Centers (I think) saying "How about a nice hand, for the one and only, Ralph Stanley";
Don't Cheat In Our Hometown (mis-titled as Don't Cheat In Our Hometwon has Ralph saying We had some requests now for Keith and Rick to do a song and this is one that they have recorded and have out in an album. Rick what's the name of it? to which a young Ricky Skaggs replies Er, 'Don't Cheat In Our Hometown', followed by Ralph repeating Don;t Cheat In Our Hometown. If you're gonna do anything, why get out of town right. Ricky then adds:- Let's dedicate this thing to June Sutherland and all them, all the boys up there on the hill and Ralph then says Yeah, alright, Don't Cheat In Our Hometown. Ricky and Keith had recorded the song on their Second Generation Bluegrass LP in June 1971.;
Man Of Constant Sorrow has Keith Whitley introducing Ralph saying: "Right now Ralph's gonna do a number he's been singing for a long time. He's had a lot of requests to do this, and it's a solo number entitled 'Man of Constant Sorrow'";
Katy Daly has Roy Lee saying We'd like to do a song right now, a duet number that we have on an album, we have the album with us, the album's called 'Something Old, Something New' and the title of the song is 'Katy Daly' after which Ralph slightly off-mic says something like "???? we'd like to do this for Tennessee" and then somebody agrees saying "Yeah we sure would";}