Rank Stranger

Albert E. Brumley's song is titled "Rank Strangers to Me"; the Stanley version is called "Rank Stranger". The brothers recorded it in May or June 1960 (the exact day is not settled) at Magnum Studio in Jacksonville, Florida, for the album Sacred Songs from the Hills, and Starday issued it as a single in August 1960 (Starday 506, 3:09), backed with "Gathering Flowers for the Master's Bouquet". Carter sang lead and played guitar, Ralph sang tenor and played banjo, Curley Lambert sang baritone and played mandolin, Audie Webster played bass and Ralph Mayo lead guitar. Liner notes and Reid's book differ slightly on session dates.

It was recorded in mono, and the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry (Bluegrass Today reported the selection in June 2009; other sources say 2008, so the year is unsettled). Reid is quoted there calling it perhaps the song that best captures the highly emotive quality of the Stanley Brothers singing. It was used in a 2008 Barack Obama radio ad in Virginia featuring Ralph Stanley, and Bluegrass Today says it is still played worldwide, almost always in the Stanley arrangement. Ralph performed it at the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival in 1974, and a recording of that is held at the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University.