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Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder - Soldier Of The Cross

(Skaggs Family Records SKFR-CD-5001) 1999.

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This CD features Ralph Stanley and George Shuffler on one track, a version of Jacob's Vision which the Stanley Brothers had originally recorded on their 1960 Sacred Songs From The Hills LP.

The album may have been a favourite of Ricky's, as the two other Stanley songs featured, I'm Ready To Go and The Darkest Hour, were also from Sacred Songs From The Hills (despite the liner notes incorrectly saying that I'm Ready To Go was "on the last album that Carter Stanley got to do before he passed away in 1966").

Soundwise, the recording is highly polished and flawless musically... but it's a bit on the smug/evangelical 'preachy' side of things, in a couple of places.

Maybe I'm a aghast at the liner notes which among other things dedicate the album to "The Knights of Malta who in 1522, took 700 knights and 1500 militiamen and fought off 200,000 Turks on the island of Rhodes and kept Christianity from being swept out of Europe by Islam. These great knights from the Order of St. John of Jerusalem would fight in the daylight and then bandage up the wounded enemy in the night. It was a tremendous act of Christ-likeness"... This not quite correct - the Knights used Muslim slave labour to fortify the town's defences and they were attacked by an army of 100,000 not 200,000. The seige ended after 6 months when the towns people and the Knights agreed a truce and abandoned the island to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.^[1]

Ricky later made a DVD entitled 'Soldier Of The Cross: The Concert' (Skaggs Family 698901005-9) 2003, which includes live recordings of six of the songs on this album, plus five additional numbers. It doesn't however replicate the guest appearance by Ralph and George Shuffler.

Personnel on Jacob's Vision is as follows:-

• Ricky Skaggs: lead vocal, guitar
• Ralph Stanley: tenor vocal
• George Shuffler: bass vocal
• Mark Fain: bass

^{[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Rhodes_(1522)}