The Stanley Brothers - The Little Girl And The Dreadful Snake / Are You Waiting Just For Me

(Rich-R-Tone RRT-1055) c1952

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Shortly after being dropped by the Columbia, The Stanley's recorded one last session in mid-1952 for Rich-R-Tone at WLSI in Pikeville, Kentucky. Jim Stanton had been booking some gigs for the band, and the session was a way of drumming up interest in the area.

This session included Jim Williams on mandolin and Art Stamper on fiddle, but didn't include a bass. Four songs were cut, including a version of Bill Monroe's The Little Girl And The Dreadful Snake which Carter later explained: "That's the first song that I ever learned to sing with Bill when I went to work with him" in the spring of 1951.^[1] Bill also recorded it himself at around the same time on the 18th/19th July 1952.^[2]

Are You Waiting Just For Me is also patterned after Bill Monroe, who performed it at the Opry in the '40s^[2], as opposed to Ernest Tubb's much slower original.

Ralph later re-recorded The Little Girl And The Dreadful Snake on his 1978 LP Down Where The River Bends. He also re-cut Are You Waiting Just For Me with Ralph II on their 2013 CD Side By Side. Other CMB versions of Are You Waiting... include Charlie Sizemore on In My View and Hook & Beans on The Girl I Left Behind.

Both sides of the 78 can be found on the Earliest Recordings: The Complete Rich-R-Tone 78s CD.

Please get in touch if you have a copy of this 78 & can provide better photo's of the labels!

For a detailed breakdown and background to the Stanley's session, check Gary B. Reid's The Music Of The Stanley Brothers book, pages 34 and 39.

Other artwork / related images:

[1] Gary B. Reid liner notes to 'Stanley Series Vol. 2 #4 (Copper Creek CCSS-V2N4) 1987.
[2] Neil V. Rosenberg and Charles K. Wolfe's 'The Music Of Bill Monroe' (p. 92).
[3] https://youtu.be/nfMyYH8eL7k?si=v7kY6GUltPUUu9qN