The Johnson Mountain Boys

It began in 1975 as a duo, Connell on banjo and Ron Welch on guitar, playing mostly Stanley Brothers songs. They called themselves the Johnson Boys after a band Connell’s father had played in, and when they learned another group already had the name, they added “Mountain.” The duo grew into a five-piece as Eddie D’Zmura joined on mandolin, Gary Reid on bass and David McLaughlin on fiddle, with Frannie Davidson taking over the banjo so that Connell could move to guitar and lead vocals. They worked open mics, restaurants and clubs around Washington.

Mark Prindle replaced Reid on bass in June 1978, but Reid stayed close to the band: that October he started Copper Creek Records and produced its first record, a single pairing Connell’s “When I Can Forget” with “Johnson Mountain Hoedown,” an instrumental by Connell and D’Zmura. Copper Creek issued it in January 1979. When McLaughlin left for college in the fall of 1978, the sixteen-year-old Eddie Stubbs took over the fiddle, playing weekends until he finished high school the following May. In the summer of 1979 Richard Underwood replaced Davidson on banjo and Larry Robbins replaced Prindle on bass.

That lineup of Connell, Underwood, D’Zmura, Stubbs and Robbins recorded The Johnson Mountain Boys in August 1980 at Bias Recording in Springfield, Virginia, and Rounder released it in April 1981. McLaughlin then came back, this time on mandolin in place of D’Zmura, and the band was soon playing about 150 dates a year. An album a year followed, most of them cut at Bias: Walls of Time in 1982, Working Close in 1983, the gospel We’ll Still Sing On in 1985. In between, on 5 April 1983, they recorded Live at the Birchmere at the club in Alexandria, Virginia.

Working Close coincided with a signing to Lance LeRoy’s Lancer Agency, and the bookings grew to include the White House, Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center and the Grand Ole Opry. The band first went overseas in 1984, on a month-long United States Information Agency tour of Africa, and later toured England, China, India and Burma.

Underwood’s last album with the group was Let the Whole World Talk (1987), which also introduced bassist Marshall Wilborn. Its title song, with twin fiddles by Stubbs and McLaughlin, was picked up by radio stations that otherwise played little bluegrass. Tom Adams, who had recently left Jimmy Martin’s band, played banjo on Requests (1988).

Even with that schedule, the band could not earn its five members a decent wage, and on 20 February 1988 it played what was billed as its farewell concert, at the Lucketts Community Center in Lucketts, Virginia. Rounder recorded the show and released it as the double album At the Old Schoolhouse, which won IBMA Album of the Year in 1990 and was nominated for a Grammy.

The farewell did not end the band. Connell, McLaughlin, Stubbs and Adams regrouped with bassist Earl Yager, aiming for 25 to 30 dates a year rather than 200, and recorded Blue Diamond at Big Mo Recording in Kensington, Maryland; Rounder issued it in 1993, and it too was nominated for a Grammy. The band broke up for good after a festival in Myrtle Beach in November 1996.