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Ralph Stanley - Let's Go To The Fair / Hills Of Home (A Tribute To Carter)

(King 45-6252) 1969

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This 7" was recorded at the sessions for Ralph's Hills Of Home LP on 15th July 1969 at the Starday studios in Nashville TN.^[1]

Let's Go To The Fair is a humorous novelty piece, which is somewhat similar in melody & style to the Goins Brothers' Old Shanghi. This song was featured on the Goins' debut Bluegrass Hits Old And New LP and a 45 and were released in July & June 1969 respectively.

Hills Of Home was written by Wandell 'Wendy' Smith, using the tune of Let Me Rest which Carter and Ralph had recorded for King in 1960. Wendy had previously written a tribute to Carter on 2nd Dec 1966, which was released in 1967 as Wendy Smith and The Windy Mountain Boys - Carter Stanley Will Lead That Great Band/Saviour Guide Me (Fortune F355)^[2]. In an interview in Blugrass Unlimited^[3] Wendy said: "After that tribute to Carter, Ralph asked me to write "Hills Of Home". They were playing a show at Chapmanville, West Virginia. Melvin (Goins) went and borrowed a mandolin for me and I played a show with them that night."

"I said to Ralph (when asked to write the song) 'I Can't even imagine how close you and Carter were, travelling together and all, so I'll just write it as if it were my brother."

"That night, driving back home from the show - that's when I can write, when everybody's quiet and I'm tired - I wrote 'Hills Of Home'"

"Ralph came up (to Michigan) a couple of weeks later, and I had it finished. George Shuffler recorded it (on tape) in Fay McGinnins' kitchen. Ralph just listened to part of it and walked out, and it was a couple of years before he could record it."

Hills Of Home would become a fairly regular fixture in Ralph's live set in future years. Ralph re-recorded it in 1975 on Let Me Rest On A Peaceful Mountain and in 2015 on the Cracker Barrel Man Of Constant Sorrow. Live versions also crop up on Live At The Smithsonian/Live At The Smithsonian Vol. 2 and Clinch Mountain Boys Reunion DVD/2xCD.

Wendy Smith (miscredited here as 'Windy') went on to provide several songs for Ralph, including: River Underground, Daughter Of Geronimo, Sweet Sally Brown, Lonesome, Hills Of Home and Shotgun Slade. For more info on Wendy, see the Sings Michigan Bluegrass entry.

^{[1] John Wright's "Travelling The High Way Home" book (p252).
[2] http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2012/07/carter-stanley-will-lead-that-great-band-mp3.html
[3] 'Wendy Smith And Michigan Bluegrass' by Marty Godbey, Blugrass Unlimited (April 1984)}