Charlie Cline & The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers - Why Ray? Ralph!

(Old Homestead OHS-90109) 1979

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Charlie's second album for Old Homestead is a pleasant, largely fiddle dominated LP, with all instrumental tracks except for the title cut, Why Ray? Ralph! and the version of Orange Blossom Special.

The title cut is a humorous 'answer' song to Curly Ray Cline's Why Me Ralph?, which itself a spoof of Kris Kristoffrson's Why Me Lord. On it Charlie deliberately plays out of tune, scraping the bow across the strings & singing about how Ralph should hire him instead of his brother.

Most of the tunes on the album are standards, with Charlie also performing three of his own compositions: Crazy Horse which has an American Indian-inspired feel in a similar vein to Cheyenne; Wagon Wheel - an uptempo number which Charlie later re-cut on the Warrior River Boys' Blue Grass Session; and Hickory Leaf, which also features Chuck Carpepenter's banjo to good effect.

Chuck Carpenter gets to play banjo breaks on many of the tracks, switching to clawhammer on Arkansas Traveler, and dobro on Maidens Prayer.

Charlie also doubles up playing Mandolin breaks on Arkansas Traveler.

In John W. Morris' liner notes to the album he writes: "Charlie re-organised 'The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers' about three years ago and has recorded seven long play albums already, and will record the eighth one next month." This is a bit odd, as the LP is only the fifth to be released since Charlie reconstituted the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers in 1977... so a misprint? or are there another two unreleased albums? More likely perhaps, John Morris could have counted the two 1960s' Lonesome Pine Fiddler albums on Starday...

The cover shows Charlie in his "Little Willie" guise playing a miniature fiddle as part of a comedy routine that was developed early on with The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers.

• Charlie Cline: fiddle, mandolin
• Lee Cline: bass
• Chuck Carpenter: banjo, dobro
• Ed Wilson: guitar

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