“Big Country” is a bluegrass instrumental co-written by Jimmy Martin and Vernon Derrick and first recorded by Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys on November 22, 1966, at Bradley’s Barn in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. The recording was released in 1967 on Decca Records as part of the album Big and Country Instrumentals, an album devoted entirely to instrumental pieces from the Sunny Mountain Boys’ working repertoire.
Vernon Derrick was Martin’s fiddler during this productive mid-1960s Decca period, and the Martin–Derrick collaboration produced two of the canonical bluegrass instrumentals of the era: “Big Country” and “The Arab Bounce” (the latter with its title from Derrick’s nickname “the Arab”). Derrick’s fiddle work on the original recordings — his combination of bluegrass-tradition long-bow technique with melodic invention — established the canonical readings that subsequent fiddlers have referenced.
“Big Country” sits in the small body of Jimmy Martin instrumental compositions that crossed into the bluegrass jam-session repertoire alongside the much larger Martin vocal catalog. The tune has been covered by Donnie Scott, Rual Yarbrough, the Grassland Bluegrass Band, and many others. It remains a regular feature at jam sessions where pickers want a Martin-tradition instrumental with strong fiddle work, and a workshop standard for fiddlers studying Vernon Derrick’s particular bluegrass-fiddle vocabulary. Note that the post-2000 Scottish rock band of the same name is unrelated to this bluegrass instrumental.