Jonathan Edwards and the Seldom Scene

Edwards was born in Aitkin, Minnesota, in 1946 and grew up in Virginia. “Sunshine” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a gold disc in January 1972; later in the 1970s he sang harmony on Emmylou Harris’s Elite Hotel and made two albums for Warner Bros. produced by Brian Ahern. In 1979 he moved back to the United States, settling first in New Hampshire and, about two years later, back in Northern Virginia, the Seldom Scene’s home ground. By then the Scene was Duffey on mandolin, Mike Auldridge on Dobro and steel guitar, Ben Eldridge on banjo, Tom Gray on bass and Phil Rosenthal, who had replaced John Starling in 1977, on guitar, and it had moved from Rebel to Sugar Hill.

Blue Ridge was recorded at Bias Recording Company in Springfield, Virginia, and issued on LP and cassette in 1985 (Sugar Hill SH 3747), with a compact disc following in 1988. Edwards sang and played guitar and harmonica; Duffey sang lead and tenor and played mandolin; Auldridge played Dobro, pedal steel and high-strung guitar and sang harmony; Rosenthal played rhythm and lead guitar and sang harmony; Eldridge played banjo and Gray bass, with Kenny White on piano and Robbie Magruder on percussion. The ten songs open with Flatt and Scruggs’s “Don’t This Road Look Rough and Rocky” and take in the title song by Bob Artis and Rick Mallis, “Seven Daffodils” by Lee Hays and Fran Moseley, Dylan’s “Only a Hobo,” Ralph Stanley’s “God Gave You to Me,” Al Anderson’s “I Don’t Believe I’ll Stay Here Anymore” and “Don’t Crawfish Me, Baby” by Bill and Jody Emerson. Edwards contributed “How Long Have I Been Waiting for You,” “Little Hands” and a new version of “Sunshine.”

“Little Hands” became the title song of Edwards’s next record, a 1987 children’s album that the American Library Association named a Notable Children’s Recording. The pianist Kenny White went on to work with Edwards, accompanying him on a tour in 2001 that marked thirty years of “Sunshine.” Rosenthal left the Seldom Scene the following year, when Lou Reid took his place.