Love of the mountains cover

Love of the mountains

The Bluegrass Alliance

Album · 1982 · Old Homestead OHS 90118

Love of the Mountains (Old Homestead OHS-90118, 1982) is an LP by the Bluegrass Alliance, a band that had been playing since 1968 and whose members over the years included Dan Crary, Sam Bush, Tony Rice and Vince Gill. The five players here are Garland Shuping on banjo and lead vocals, Tony Williamson on mandolin, Keith Sanson on guitar, Lonnie Peerce on fiddle and tenor, and Mike Williams on bass. The same five are listed together as the band’s lineup for the winter of 1976–77 in a tribute written by a former member. Williamson, who grew up in Piedmont North Carolina, joined the Bluegrass Alliance after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975; in 2018 he received a North Carolina Heritage Award.

Shuping wrote two of the ten tracks, “Blue Lonely River” and “Rolling Midnight Train.” The rest include Jerry Reed’s “East Bound and Down,” Joan Baez’s “Diamonds and Rust,” and two instrumentals, “Shenandoah Breakdown” and “Black Mountain Rag.” Old Homestead, the Michigan label John W. Morris started in 1971 to issue Wade Mainer’s recordings, had put out a self-titled Bluegrass Alliance LP the year before (OHS 90115, 1981).

Tracklist

  1. 1 Love of the Mountains alt version 2:45
  2. 2 Blue Lonely River 2:58
  3. 3 Shenandoah Breakdown alt version 3:13
  4. 4 Blue Ridge Mountains Turning Green 3:27
  5. 5 East Bound and Down alt version 3:21
  6. 6 Bus Fare to Kentucky 3:10
  7. 7 Rolling Midnight Train 3:12
  8. 8 Diamonds and Rust 3:52
  9. 9 Song of the Wildwood 3:50
  10. 10 Black Mountain Rag alt version 2:40

Share Playlist