A look at the discography:

It depends on your personal taste. Stan had a dual musical personality, so his albums alternated (intentionally) between highly-produced and polished and quite traditional-sounding.

Fogarty's Cove-- very rootsy, a major event in Canadian folk music, a must-have album, with the original Barretts Privateers and 45 Years, and some great songs on it that nobody covers any more.

Turnaround--Some very very fine songs, (The Jeannie C.), some less so. More produced. This was actually sort of a retrospective album in that some of the songs were written before Fogarty's Cove. I'm not crazy about most of those earlier ones although the title track-written when he was about 20--is very nice.

Between the Breaks--Live album. If you never saw Stan, this is one you must get. First recording of Mary Ellen Carter, I think.

Northwest Passage--My favourite of the big-sound albums, although there are a couple I prefer to skip over (Lies.) but classics like The Idiot and NW Passage itself, as well as Canol Road, the lovely Field Behind the Plow, and more.

For The Family--a gem, totally acoustic and very sparse his only album of non-original music, a collection of family favourites, some written by his uncles, some standards. Stan's sonorous bass vocal is a perfect vehicle for "Cape St. Mary's"--stunning.

From Fresh Water--final big-production album which was a work-in-progress when Stan died, his songs about the Great Lakes. Again, some very fine songs such as "White Squall", while there's some stuff here verging on MOR ("Lockkeeper"--some like it, and I understand that it's special to his family, but just too sentimental for me.)

Home in Halifax, a live concert recording released several years ago, is well worth getting. Stan wrote great songs and put them on great albums, but for me, the live shows were the greatest presentation of his music. If you were at Winnipeg Folk Fest in 77 or 78, when it had been raining all day but the sun came out from the edge of the clouds during his mainstage concert out for all of 45 seconds before it set, you would think so too. (OK, I don't remember what he was playing, but it was a great moment.)

Willie-O
Certifiable Stanologist