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Jim Lauderdale & Ralph Stanley - I Feel Like Singing Today

(Rebel REB-CD-1755) 1999

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This is the first of two decent collaborations between Jim Lauderdale and Ralph, and was recorded at Maggard Sound studios in Big Stone Gap, Va. It was nominated for a Grammy.

The song selections are broadly split between old Stanley Brothers material and songs written or co-written by Jim Lauderdale.

I must confess I don't really know anything about Jim, but he apparently was a bluegrass / Stanley Brothers fan as a child, and had become a prolific Nashvile singer-songwriter, with several albums within the Country/Americana field.

Jim had sung If I Lose with Ralph on the 1997 Clinch Mountain Country project, and in the same year Ralph and the CMBs helped Jim record I'll Lead You Home on his 'Whisper' CD.

A couple of the tracks (Joy, Joy Joy and I Will Wait For You) were co-written between Jim and Robert Hunter, the Grateful Dead's lyricist.

You'll Find Her Name Written There is an old Bill Monroe classic. It was written by Harold Hensley, who was a veteran fiddle player from White Top Mountain, Va. He had a stint on the Opry in 1943/44 and later moved to LA, performing on the weekly TV show 'Town Hall Party'. He went on to become a well respected session musician and songwriter and died in 1988.^[1]

Jim's Like Him is an interesting a cappella number, with Ralph twisting his lines old time gospel fashion, and Jim periodically doing an old-time field 'holler'.

Ralph (I think) plays clawhammer on the closing track Who Thought The Railroad Wouldn't Last.

Jim later appeared with Ralph guesting on I Feel Like Singing Today on the Merlefest 2008 CDR, and co-produced the Cracker Barrell Man Of Constant Sorrow CD in 2014.

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

^{[1] Neil V. Rosenberg & Charles Wolfe's 'The Music Of Bill Monroe' book (p.97)}