Old-Time Pickin': A Clawhammer Banjo Collection

by Ralph Stanley

Overview

Ralph Stanley is one of very few bluegrass banjo players who still occasionally takes off the steel fingerpicks and plays in the older, more traditional clawhammer (or "frailing") style. It's a more modal and percussive approach, one that carries with it the rough-hewn charm of old-time string band music rather than the flashier, more commercial appeal of bluegrass. This 18-track set (half the tracks are new to CD) is drawn from Stanley's long run with Rebel Records and includes him playing the banjo in the clawhamer style he learned from his mother when he was 11 years old. The virtuoso speed and considered slickness of contemporary bluegrass are nowhere to be found here, but that doesn't mean this is a radically different Ralph Stanley, it's just Stanley working closer to his string band roots. The approach is still the same, and his singing is still full of mountain gospel as he searches for meaning and redemption in the old songs. ~ Steve Leggett

Product Details

Release Date:	10/07/2008
Label:	Rebel
UPC:	0032511752024
Rank:	55242

Tracks

1. Rocky Island
2. Shout Little Lulie
3. Battle Ax
4. Pretty Girls, City Lights
5. Cripple Creek
6. I've Got A Mule To Ride
7. Medley: Old McDonald/Cindy
8. Shady Grove
9. John Henry
10. Little Birdie
11. Cuttin' The Cornbread
12. Bound To Ride
13. Married Life Blues
14. Black-Eyed Susie
15. Kentucky Shine
16. True Blue Bill
17. Dixieland (My Old Home Town)
18. Old Time Pickin'

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Ralph Stanley   Primary Artist,Banjo,Vocals,Banjolin,Tenor (Vocal)
Ricky Skaggs   Mandolin
Junior Blankenship   Guitar
Roy Lee Centers   Guitar,Guitar (Rhythm)
Ralph Stanley II   Vocals,Guitar (Rhythm)
Keith Whitley   Guitar
Jack Cooke   Bass
James Alan Shelton   Guitar (Rhythm)
Curley Ray Cline   Fiddle
Charlie Sizemore   Vocals,Guitar (Rhythm)
James Price   Fiddle
Ricky Lee   Guitar
John Rigsby   Mandolin

Technical Credits

Mark Freeman   Production Coordination
David Freeman   Compilation Producer
Lenny Atkins   Photography
Ralph Stanley   Arranger,Composer
David Glasser   Mastering
Traditional   Composer
Eddie Dean   Liner Notes
Alan Maggard   Engineer