The Blue Ridge Partners (with Al Elliott) - How Would You Like Being Lonesome

(Old Homestead OHS-90108) 1981

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Al Elliott's fourth LP with the Blue Ridge Partners is a solid trad-bluegrass album with good vocal harmony and instrumentation, but is over reliant on well-worn standards, with little original material.

Aside from Al Elliott's Heaven Seemed So Near, which he wrote & recorded with The Stanley Brothers (King 615), the only original tracks are the banjo instrumental Red Eye by Jerry Keys, and Jesus Can Save You Today, by the Old Homestead label owner John Morris.

The version of Heaven Seemed So Near is very similar to the Stanley's except that the final chorus is repeated after a fiddle break at the end. On the LP it's also just credited to Al Ellott, whereas the Stanley's co-credited it to their half-sister Ruby Rakes.

Old Love Letters was also recorded by The Stanley Brothers in 1961, but the lyrics here have more in common with the Jimmy Reeves and Porter Wagoner versions.

The LP gives no clue as to the personnel on the record, or the history of the band, so the line-up below is based on the band photo on the cover.

I think this was their penultimate album, but the band continued until at least 1997.

• Albert Elliott: mandolin, vocal
• Jim Bullock: bass
• J.R. Gibson: guitar, vocal
• Jerry Keys: banjo
• G.C. Matlock: lead guitar
• Jim Miller: fiddle

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