The Stanley Brothers - The Complete Mercury Recordings

(Mercury MERC-B0000534-02) 2003

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This 2xCD set contains practically everything The Stanley Brothers cut for Mercury, which were arguably, their finest moment. It is simply, an absolute 'must have' for any Stanley fan...

By the end of 1952 having being dropped by Columbia, and recorded their final session for Rich-R-Tone, The Stanley Brothers once again found themselves without enough income to sustain the band. To survive they had to take up jobs in Michigan at the Ford factory. Fortunately, the musical hiatus was brief, and after seeing a show by Jimmy Martin they decided to pick up the music again.^[1]

Soon they had signed to Mercury, and between August 1953 and Febrary 1958, they recorded eleven superb sessions.

Ralph:- "Our first session from Mercury was one of those times when everything goes right, and you go right along with it. You don't rightly know where it comes from, and you don't ask. We had the songs, we had the musicians, and we had the sound. I believe it was the beginning of the Stanley Sound we became known for. I can't explain it too well, but there was drive in our playing we'd never had before."^[1]

It is difficult to put a finger on it, and perhaps it was just the experience they'd gained over the last few years which make the Mercury sides stand out. Ralph's vocal work definitely matured as he got a little older, and his banjo playing - particularly back-up seems more prominent in the mix. Carter too was still on fine form vocally and writing classics like Nobody's Love Is Like Mine, (Say) Won't You Be Mine, Our Last Goodbye, Harbor Of Love and A Lonesome Night (the latter remarkably unissued until 1993).

In their Mercury years, they also had some stellar sidemen including Art Stamper, Ralph Mayo, Joe Meadows, and Chubby Anthony on fiddle; and on mandolin the equally talented Jim Williams, Bill Lowe, Curley Lambert and Bill Napier.

The recordings are also notable for Ralph's first banjo instrumentals, Dickenson County Breakdown (mistitled Dickson County Breakdown), Hard Times, and the under-rated Big Tilda and Fling Ding; Bill Napier's classic Daybreak In Dixie also got it's first recording and George Shuffler played his first spell on bass (with his influential walking runs).

The 2xCD set comes with a 24-page booklet with reasonable liner notes by Mary Katherine Aldin, and neatly designed CD artwork which mimic the original Black and Green Mercury label styles. The last two tracks, Maple On The Hill and Little Maggie, I think were recorded later for Starday and leased to Mercury's subsidiary 'Smash' label.

It's also perhaps worth noting that this collection uses the Hard Times version of Our Last Goodbye rather than the original single version (Mercury 70270). On the original 45 Carter starts the song singing "The nights are lonely here without you" but on this version he sings "Oh the nights are...".^[2] The alternate single version can be found on the Bear Family The Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys 1953 - 1958 & 1959 2xCD.

For a far more detailed breakdown and background to these sessions, check Gary B. Reid's The Music Of The Stanley Brothers book, pages 40-51, 57-58, 60-64, 66-69, and 71-85.

Other artwork / related images:

[1] Ralph Stanley and Eddie Dean's 'The Man Of Constant Sorrow' (p. 172 - 199). In the book Ralph says "winter of 1953" but it was 1952.
[2] Letter by Walt Saunders in the 1967 'Carter Stanley Memorial Issue' of the 'Stanley Standard' fan club newsletter. (p. 71)