The Goins Brothers - On The Way Home

(Rebel SLP-1557) 1976

---

The Goins Brothers second album for Rebel is a well-recorded gospel effort that was recorded at Track Studio, Silver Spring, Maryland 13-15th Jan 1976. Their next LP, Take This Hammer, was also cut at the same session.

With former CMB Curley Lambert now in the band, this another LP to feature excellent bluegrass backing and some of the Goins' finest singing^[1].

Aside from He Showed Me The Way and On The Way Home the album is made up of familiar titles from the Stanley Brothers / Flatt & Scruggs / Bill Monroe / Jimmy Martin & Carl Story catalogues.

White Dove is of course, Carter Stanley's classic, although the Goins' vocal performance falls a little short in comparison to the original.

Ten of the tracks are vocals, with Jesus Savior Pilot Me and Swing Low Sweet Chariot being performed as instrumentals. Jesus Savior Pilot Me is augmented by unobtrusive drum accompaniment.

Melvin & Ray had previously cut He Showed Me The Way during their early 60s period on Starday with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. Lyrics for this one, and many of the other Lonesome Pine Fiddlers songs which were co-credited to Curly Ray Cline, were written by a crippled cousin of the Cline brothers called Keissler.^[2] Melvin & Ray had also recorded the Louvin Brothers' The Family Who Prays on the Goins Brothers' debut album, Bluegrass Hits Old And New.

Liner notes for this one are by Carl Story...

The Appalshop Archive has some video footage of the Goins Brothers with Curley Lambert from the Wise County Shriners Bluegrass festival: including a 1975 performance (also with Country Comfort and the Outdoor Plumbing Co.); a 1976 performance (also with The Marshall Family); and a 1977 performance featuring a young Charlie Sizemore on lead guitar. Although the video windows are quite small, they can be viewed full-screen once a video has started playing.

Other artwork / related images:

[1] Curley and Melvin had of course previously played together in the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1967 and were featured on Ralph's Old Time Music LP).
[2] Charlie Cline:- "My cousin, he was a crippled boy called Kessler Cline, and he wrote a lot of them words and I made the tunes to them. He gave us... I forget now exactly how many, but it was quite a few. I gave Curly half of the song credit. I don't think Ray ever wrote any of 'em. Me and him was the Cline Brothers then, and I was a lot younger than him. So, we just shared everything." (liner notes to The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers CD - 'Windy Mountain' (Bear BCD-16351-AH) 1992.