Larry Sparks - It's Never Too Late

(June Appal JA-034) 1980.

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This album was released in October 1980, shortly after the much-delayed John Deere Tractor, and features the same line-up as that on Kinda Lonesome. It was presumably recorded at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentuckly and issued on their June Appal label.

The album features a much more straight-forward set of bluegrass material, with less reliance on the lush song arrangements found on some tracks on Larry's previous albums. Several tracks are taken from the classic first generation bluegrass era, with four from the Flatt & Scruggs catalogue (I'll Go Steppin' Too, On My Mind, I'm Gonna Sleep With One Eye Open, and the Delmore Brothers' Will You Be Lonesome Too?); plus Bill Monroe's Live And Let Live; and the Stanley Brothers' It's Never Too Late (with Larry playing banjo).

Larry is also featured playing banjo on the Carter Family's Single Girl, and Hank Williams' I Wish I Had A Nickel.

Green Pastures In The Sky is a re-recording of the Osburn 'Ozzie' Thorpe song, which Larry first recorded in 1971 on New Gospel Songs. He also later re-recorded the song on Pickin' And Singin' (1975), It's Never Too Late (1980) and New Moon Over My Shoulder (2019).

Two slow Gospel numbers are also included with the lilting I'll Be Glad To Go Home featuring smooth fiddle backing, and an instrumental version of How Great Thou Art with Larry's guitar and Glen Duncan's fiddle again to the fore.

• Larry Sparks: guitar, banjo, vocals
• Tommy Boyd: banjo, dobro, tenor vocal
• David Bowling: bass
• Glen Duncan: fiddle, baritone vocals

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