Bluegrass is full of songs about going home, and the famous ones get sung at every jam. These twenty-four don’t. They come from writers like Hazel Dickens, Norman Blake, Ola Belle Reed, and Bill Clifton, and from a few quieter corners of the tradition. Some are old, some are newer. What ties them together is the same homesickness that drives “Blue Ridge Cabin Home” or “Footprints in the Snow” — the cabin in the hills, the mama waiting, the green rolling hills of someplace you can’t get back to. They deserve the same shelf space.

Use this list to pull a few new ones into your repertoire, or to round out a set when the standards start feeling worn in. Each song’s page on Picker’s Guide has chord charts, lyrics, recordings to listen through, and song history. Start with the writers you already trust and work outward from there.