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Ralph Stanley - That Beautiful Woman / Row Hoe

(King 45-6113) 1968

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This 7" was recorded on Ralph's first session for his Brand New Country Songs album in May 1967.

(Who Was) That Beautiful Woman is a classy ghost tale which was written by Gene Duty, a friend of Ralph and Carter's. He can be heard singing the song with The Stanley Brothers on the Manville NJ Dec 3rd 1965 show.^[1] Ralph's version for King is fairly similar to Gene's except that two verses and a couple of choruses are omitted.

Ralph later re-recorded That Beautiful Woman on his Old Home Place album in 1976 and again in 2004 on his Sings His Favorites Now and Then CD.

Row Hoe is another of Ralph's under-appreciated instrumentals. In 1991/2 Ralph described how the instrumental Row Hoe came about:- "Curly Ray Cline and me wrote this on a trip, when we was out in California several years ago... We named this one after Curly Ray's rooster 'Row Hoe'."^[2]

Both sides of the 7" can now be found on the Poor Rambler 3xCD set.

^{[1] For more details on Gene Duty, see the Sing Michigan Bluegrass entry. The Manville NJ show on 3rd Dec 1965 was at the Staelight Room and was recorded by Mike Seeger. Red Allen also makes an appearance on the second set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuTM-_3inRI and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJYH9mqsmPY
The two additional verses in Gene's version are:-
He said she's so kind and lovely
Her long hair hung way down behind
Those beautiful songs that she sang to me
I can't get them out of my mind
and:-
He pulled his hand from his pocket
And showed this 'kerchief of braid
The same one I'd placed in her coffin
The day we laid Mary away
[2] Homespun's The Banjo Of Ralph Stanley - From Old-Time To Bluegrass DVD.}