The Stanley Brothers
Angel Band: The Classic Mercury Recordings
Mercury 314-528 191-2
5 rating
review by Art Menius

Less than a week before Mercury kindly sent an unexpected copy of Angel Band, an 18-track compilation of their 1953-1958 recordings for the label, I had forked over big bucks for the German two-CD collection of their complete Mercury output. That bothers me hardly a whit for this is classic bluegrass at its highest level, essential listening for anyone interested in bluegrass music yesterday, today, or tomorrow. One cannot have too many copies of music that began on 78s, survived on LP’s, and now lives again on CD. Not only the Stanley Brothers recordings in general, but these Mercury sides in particular, rank as Grail material, the building blocks of a genre along with post-war work of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and Reno & Smiley.

Ralph & Carter Stanley came to Mercury to replace Flatt & Scruggs, who had been signed away by Columbia, which had dropped the Stanleys. Having completed a fairly lengthy transition into full-fledged bluegrass instrumentation, the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys now possessed unflinching power. Carter, a gifted, sensitive, alcoholic embarked on a short life of sorrow, sang lead confidently with an overwhelming emotionalism. Ralph, who has lived to become a much honored musical patriarch, provided an ancient, unsettling tenor and powerful, highly personal banjo style. The resulting blend of bluegrass modernism with atavistic, mostly original songs of lost love, departed parents, abandoned homes, floods, and school bus wrecks.

Angel Band’s treasures include the Monroe covers "A Voice From On High," the first bluegrass recording to feature the high lead vocal trio later perfected by the Osborne Brothers, and a boogie-woogie "Blue Moon of Kentucky," waxed at Monroe’s direction following Elvis Presley’s Sun recording. "Daybreak in Dixie," composed by Bill Napier but credited to Carter, provided one of the first bluegrass mandolin pieces not written by Monroe. "I Long To See The Home Folks," "This Weary Heart You Stole Away," "Memories of Mother," "Calling From Heaven," and "Life of Sorrow" pretty well make out the emotional territory covered by the songwriter Carter Stanley, a man dealing with some significant abandonment issues. Compiler Colin Escott wisely avoids including "Big Tilda," "The Flood," and "No School Bus in Heaven." I would have enjoyed, however, hearing "If That’s The Way You Feel," "I’m Lost And I’ll Never Find A Way," or Ralph’s instrumental "Hard Times" more than "Tragic Love," "I Worship You," or the previously unreleased "Close By." In any case, Angel Band proves crucial listening by a superlative rural American musical outfit.

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