I’ve Never Been So Lonesome

Boone & Foster paired the mandolinist and singer Troy Boone with the guitarist Aaron “Frosty” Foster. The two first played together at the Ole Smoky Moonshine distillery in east Tennessee, performing as Dreamcatcher, and both later worked in Amanda Cook’s band. Mountain Fever Records announced the signing in June 2020. For the duo’s recordings they brought in Brady Wallen on banjo, Daniel Greeson on fiddle and Aaron Ramsey on bass, with Greeson and Wallen singing harmony behind Boone’s lead. The album was cut at Boone’s home, then in Morganton, North Carolina, in the winter of 2019.

The first single, “County Fool,” came out on 19 June 2020. It was written by Patrick McDougal, and Alan Bibey had recorded it some twenty years earlier on his Sugar Hill album In the Blue Room. The single reached No. 6 on the Bluegrass Today weekly airplay chart in early 2021. Foster died on 10 February 2021, at 28, at his home in Elizabethton, Tennessee. A native of Wells Bridge, New York, he had graduated from East Tennessee State University in 2017.

Foster had picked “I’ve Never Been So Lonesome,” a fast song by Fred Hannah and Sam Humphrey, as the second single. Mountain Fever issued it in his memory in November 2022, with Boone singing lead. A third single, “Long Journey Home,” followed in March 2023. The album Smoky Mountain Favorites was released on 21 April 2023 and collects all three alongside songs such as “Fox on the Run,” “Uncle Pen” and “Rocky Top.”

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.