Songs My Mother Taught Me & More: Clawhammer Style Banjo

AMG Review of Songs My Mother Taught Me & More: Clawhammer Style Banjo

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

Ralph Stanley is one of very few luegrass banjo players who still take off the steel fingerpicks occasionally and play in the older, more traditional clawhammer (or "frailing") style. It's a more percussive, less intricate approach, one that carries with it the rough-hewn charm of old-time string band music rather than the flashier, more commercial appeal of luegrass. This disc collects 18 live and studio recordings in that mode by Stanley, some made just a few years prior to this album's 1997 release and others dating as far back as the early '70s. Many of the tunes will be familiar to Stanley fans -- he's recorded "Shout Little Lulie" and "Little Birdie" many times -- but others are more obscure. While all of these performances are a delight, it's the live ones that work the best, partly because he sings more on those; the live performance of "Little Birdie" may be definitive. And the disc ends with an on-stage interview in which an unidentified MC gets Stanley to explain his technique in detail. Musician credits would have been helpful to those interested in this recording as a historical document, but the music couldn't be better.