Country Music Allstars - Will The Circle Be Unbroken

Easter calls for songs of faith, and Country Music does not disappoint.  Fortunately, they are well practiced on this song - by tradition, it closes each year's Country Music Hall Of Fame ceremony.  This is appropriate as this version (which included a significant lyrics re-write from Ada Habbershom's and Charles Gabriel's 1907 original) was popularized by the Carter Family in the 1930s.  Mother Maybell Carter sang on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1972 epic version.

About the only thing that could top that version, in fact, is this 1989 performance from the Country Music Hall Of Fame.  Not only was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band there, but a list of everyone who was anyone in Country Music: Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs, The Carter Family, Emmylou Harris, Chet Atkins, Marty Stuart, Ricky Skaggs, and Bruce Hornsby.  Among others.  It's sort of a Borepatch Saturday Redneck reunion.

It's a worthy song for this holy weekend.



Will the Circle Be Unbroken? (Songwriters: Ada Habbershom, Charles Gabriel; lyrics rewriten by A.P. Carter):

I was standing by my window
On a cold and cloudy day
When I saw the hearse come rolling
For to carry my mother away

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by?
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky

Well, I went back home, home was lonely
For my mother she was gone
And all my family there was cryin'
For our home felt sad and alone

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by?
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky

Undertaker, undertaker, undertaker
Won't you please drive slow?
For that lady you are haulin'
Lord, I hate to see her go

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, Lord, by and by?
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
There's a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky