Ralph Stanley - John Henry

(Birdree PMC 6004) 1971

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Recorded on the 6th May 1971, this was a 'quickie' album the band recorded in Tokyo after the band had finished their first tour of Japan. In fact the band must have recorded it in the day and then caught an evening flight to Hawaii. In a recording of their 1st Berkeley, Ca show in the evening of 7th May, Ralph mentions that they hadn't had time to pick up some LPs the'd mailed ahead of the concert and also says: "It's real good to be with you here tonight, I don't know where we're at... as the fellow told you we are just back from Japan and we're all mixed up in the time. We left Tokyo Japan 7 O'clock Thursday night and got into Honolulu at 7 O'clock Thursday morning... and er... I don't know what time it is now..." ^[1]

According to Dick Freeland, the company that did the record (Senshukai) used it as a loss-leader to bring customers to their stores: "I understand they sold about a hundred thousand of those darn things. They just sold it for the equivalent of either a dollar or a dollar ninety-nine. They were (loss) leaders for the company." ^[2] But, this may not be correct...

Another source, suggests that Senshukai was a mail order business and the LPs were sold as part of a package deal, which did not sell well. ^[3] This seems more likely as a copy of the box set appeared on ebay recently. In addition to Ralph's album, the set contained LP's by The New Kingston Trio - 'Try To Remember' and New Orleans Jazz All Stars - 'St. Louis Blues'; and came with a colour booklet.

The album is certainly quite rare these days, and I've seen copies sell for $75 - $200.

Fortunately, all the tracks appear on the superb 1971-1973 4xCD box set (Disc 2 - tracks 1 to 12).

• Ralph Stanley: banjo, vocals
• Roy Lee Centers: guitar, vocals
• Curly Ray Cline: fiddle
• Jack Cooke: bass

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