Ralph Stanley - Best Of The Best

(Federal FED 0528-2) 2003

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This is a compilation designed to cash-in on the success of the 'Oh Brother' soundtrack, with half of the tracks drawn from The Stanley brothers King/Starday era and the remainder taken from Ralph's Brand New Country Songs, Over The Sunset Hill and Hills Of Home albums from the late '60s and the Live At The Smithsonian Vol. 2 1974 recording

With several good anthologies nowadays available, this CD is pretty much redundant.

As might be expected with such a compilation, there is scant information about the source of the material, and only brief liner notes.

In some ways, it's kind of funny that Oh Death gave Ralph's career such a boost in his mid-70s. The attention it gets is I think disproportionate to the strength of the song, especially compared to many popular and lesser-known tracks in the Stanley back-catalogue.

Rounder records Ken Irwin on the BGRASS-L email list commented that "Ralph Stanley had what I think was his best-selling album right after O'Brother scanning over 66,000 copies (and) Ralph (also) won the CMA award for Male Vocalist of the Year."

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