The Bottom Line
Pros
- "The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake"
- "The Girl Behind the Bar"
- "Molly and Tenbrook"
Cons
- Due to the original source, the sound quality is inconsistent.
Description
- Featuring 14 songs originally released on Rich-R-Tone 78s (records).
- Recorded from 1947 to 1952, released on Rounder Records.
- The original tone and quality of the 78s is captured almost intact from the original recordings.
Guide Review - The Stanley Brothers - Earliest Recordings: The Complete Rich-R-Tone 78s
I must admit something here that may lose me some "street cred" as a true afficionado of Americana/roots music, but I had actually never heard of Ralph Stanley before hearing his vocals on Dwight Yoakam's "A Long Way Home" disc. I attribute this to several things, including my age (b. 1964), my location (the west), and the rapid decline of what passed for country music after 1978 or so. But I grew up on country music and knew Flatt & Scruggs as well as I knew Waylon & Willie. So why never any Stanley Brothers?I suppose it's possible that with the death of Carter Stanley in 1965, the Brothers faded into history, noted but rarely played on western radio; whatever the reason why I knew other noteworthy names in bluegrass, I didn't know about the Stanley Brothers. Now I can say I've listened to a couple of their recent collections, and I find I have known them all along. This collection contains classics such as "The Little Glass of Wine" and "The Rambler's Blues." It's easy to tell, listening to this, how this "mountain music" developed into bluegrass.
Some people might be put off by the sound quality on this disc, as it captures the way 78's tended to sound. No hisses and pops, but that tinny, echo-chamber effect often typifying early recordings laid down on wax. Somehow that sound is part of the history of these recordings, a slice of time brought forward and set down on this digital medium to capture a feel of something long gone but which should never be forgotten.