Nathan Stanley Salutes His Bluegrass Forebears In THE LEGACY CONTINUES

No bearer of a distinguished musical heritage brings more devotion and intensity to the task than Nathan Stanley. 

Here, in The Legacy Continues, his sixth solo album, the grandson of Dr. Ralph Stanley gathers and reinterprets familiar songs that have become the very fabric of bluegrass music.  And he introduces some newer tunes that have all the earmarks of enduring.

Joining him in this noble enterprise are Brad Paisley, who sings lead on the Carter Family standard, “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone”; rising star Don Rigsby, who plays mandolin, and wrote the moving original song “Golden Years”; and present and former members of his grandfather’s Clinch Mountain Boys band, specifically Junior Blankenship (lead guitar), Dewey Brown (fiddle), Mitchell Van Dyke (banjo), Randall Hibbitts (bass) and Tony Dingus (dobro).

Not surprisingly, Stanley leans here toward songs that the Stanley Brothers immortalized, among them “Meet Me By The Moonlight,” “All The Love I Had Is Gone,” “Rambling Letters,” “Nobody’s Love Is Like Mine” and the aforementioned “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone.”

But 20-year-old Stanley also bows to other architects of bluegrass via covers of Bill Monroe’s “Let Me Rest At The End Of My Journey,” Larry Sparks’ “Casualty Of War,” the Country Gentlemen’s “Calling My Children Home” and Jim & Jesse’s “Are You Missing Me.”

In “Papaw I Love You,” which he co-wrote with Hibbitts, Stanley pays a particularly tender tribute to his grandfather for taking him in and infusing him with the love of music.  Rounding out the 14-song set are Jimmy Vaughn’s “Tears of A Friend,” Allen Mills’ “Love Of The Mountains” and “Stanley Medley,” which incorporates snippets from “Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” “Long Journey Home” (a/k/a “Two Dollar Bill”) and “Mountain Dew.”