Ralph Stanley - I'll Wear A White Robe

(Rebel SLP 1590) 1980

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Recorded on 9th March 1979 at Lowell Varney's Riverside Recording Studio in Crum, West Virginia. This was the first of three successive Gospel LPs and hasn't been reissued on CD...

I'll Wear A White Robe, No Sorrow Can Reach Us There, Mountain Preacher's Child and Life's Other Side are perfomed a cappella with the latter song 'lined' by Ralph.

A version of Life's Other Side (un-lined) was also recorded by The Wilson Brothers on their 'My Ride Is Coming' (Old Homestead OHS 70026) LP in 1979. The Wilson Brothers, who were heavily influenced by The Stanley Brothers, were introduced to Ralph by J.D. Jarvis and they were regulars at Ralph's 'Hills Of Home' festival.

Fred Huffman, who did the artwork for this, Down Where The River Bends and both Curly Ray's Who's Gonna Mow My Grass? and It's Bread And Water For... LPs, later designed the commemorative Blue Grass Boy belt buckle design that Doug Hutchens made for Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys in 1987.^[1]

• Ralph Stanley: banjo, vocals
• Junior Blankenship: lead guitar, mandolin
• Curly Ray Cline: fiddle
• Jack Cooke: bass
• Charlie Sizemore: guitar, vocals

NB: Liner notes don't specify instruments/vocal parts for individual tracks.

Other artwork / related images: