I remember Ray referring to Young's, Rotherham and Concordant as good literal translations. He also referred to the American Standard Version (ASV) and of course he used to KJV, I do like the NKJV and use it most of the time. I like having the KJV with the Strong's numbers so you can look up Strong's definitions. I also like to look at some of the translations that are in a more present day language which can make what's being spoken of clearer at times, like the Good News Bible (GNB) and the International Standard Version (ISV).
I also like having concordances for there knowledge of things in the Biblical time periods and for their cross Scriptural references, like Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (JFB), Gill, Albert Barnes and Matthew Henry. There is one in particular Treasure of Scriptural Knowledge (TSK) that primarily gives a lot of cross references.
Dictionaries are helpful too, as you need Strong's Hebrew and Greek for the number references and Thayer's Greek does that too, and also Brown Driver and Driggs (BDB) for Hebrew definitions. There is a King James Concordance that give all the other places in Scripture where a certain word you are looking at is used. And I occasionally use the American Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ASBE), Fausset's Dictionary, Nave's and Smith's.
All of these have been helpful at one time or another, of course some more than others.
mercy, peace and love
Kat