Ralph Stanley - Single Girl / Little Birdie

(Tompkins Square TSQ-22527) 2012

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This 78 rpm 10" was issued as a limited edition of 500 copies and sold in independant record stores on 'Record Store Day' 21st April 2012. At the time, Ralph's version of Single Girl was previously unreleased.

Single Girl is of course the Carter Family classic, which they recorded at the legendary Bristol 1927 sessions. The song is credited to A.P. Carter but apparently he learnt it from his mother Mollie, who had nine children to look after.^[1] Carter Stanley had performed it as a solo vocal piece on occassion, with live versions resurfacing on the Folk Festival 2xCD, the 1965 Fincastle tapes,^[2] and the Together For The Last Time/Brown County Jamboree albums.

More recently, Ralph's version of Single Girl was included as a bonus track on the Rebel CD compilation My Life & Legacy, along with the 1973 version of Little Birdie which is on the flipside of the 78.

Todd Gracyk kindly dug up a personnel / track list for Single Girl which Rebel's Mark Freeman provided as part of a recording list for the My Life & Legacy CD. This gives the date as 1996 and lists the personnel as:-

• Ralph Stanley: lead vocal
• Jack Cooke: bass
• James Price: fiddle
• John Rigsby: mandolin
• James Alan Shelton: lead guitar
• Steve Sparkman: banjo
• Ralph Stanley II: guitar

A few other 'previously unreleased' tracks from 1996 also showed up on the Old-Time Pickin': A Clawhammer Banjo Collection, so maybe Single Girl was from the same session.

Other artwork / related images:

[1] Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg's book 'Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? - The Carter Family & Their Legacy In Music' (p.25)
[2] See http://frobbi.org/audio/ivor/Fincastle65-2/index.html