The Stanley Brothers - There Is A Trap / Fast Express
(King 5557) Sep 1961
This 7" was recorded at one of the sessions for the Stanleys' Award Winners At The Folk Song Festival LP.
Both titles were non-Stanley compositions, with There Is A Trap by Bill J. Lindsey, being a catchy number about an illicit love affair; and Fast Express which was an old song originally recorded by the Delmore Brothers for King in 1946.[1]
In Mike Seeger's 1966 interview, Carter commented about the process of recording other people's songs:- "A lot of times we've never heard the song until we go to record it... most of the time they'll have it on disc y'know, and in the studio they've got a record player where they can put in on there and get the idea of it. They never asked us to do it the way the demonstration (record) had been done, but they just want us to get the idea of it and the words of course, and then do it in our way." and later:- "I think it's bad to rely strictly on your own material, I feel that eventually you're gonna repeat y'know, you're going to get in a rut and stay there. I think different minds will create different ideas."[2]
Fast Express is quite a jaunty number, with an endlessly repeating 'D-G-C-F' chord progression, and elegant but simple banjo break from Ralph.[3] Lyrically it covers several typical 'bluegrass' themes, managing to incorporate trains, murder, lost love and jealousy... The Delmore's original version is also worth a listen and can be found on youtube.
Both songs can be found on The King Years, 1961-1965 4xCD box set.
For a detailed breakdown and background to the Stanley's sessions, check Gary B. Reid's The Music Of The Stanley Brothers book, pages 128-129 and 158.
| Track: |
Title: |
Time: |
Date: |
Original Release: |
Guitar: |
Banjo: |
Fiddle: |
Mandolin: |
Bass: |
Lead guitar: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A-1 |
There Is A Trap |
03:06 |
20 Jul 1961 |
King 5557 | Carter Stanley |
Ralph Stanley |
Chubby Anthony |
Al Elliot |
George Shuffler |
George Shuffler |
| Bill J. Lindsey |
||||||||||
| B-1 |
Fast Express |
02:55 |
20 Jul 1961 |
King 5557 | Carter Stanley |
Ralph Stanley |
Chubby Anthony |
Al Elliot |
George Shuffler |
George Shuffler |
| Alton Delmore |
[1] Fast Express / I've Found An Angel (King 525) Feb. 1946 see http://www.45worlds.com/78rpm/record/nc195896us[2] Carter's comments at about 31:18 and 48:53 on the tape. You can hear the interview on youtube: https://youtu.be/YikIUZandsA. I've also attempted to clean some of the noise and you can download an MP3 of the result here (it's saved as a 67Mb zip file).
[3] See Gary Bates's (aka Stanleytone) photo page section on the banjohangout.