“Jerusalem Ridge” is a Bill Monroe composition in A minor. The Fiddler’s Companion records the story as Kenny Baker told it. In the early to mid 1970s the band was staying at a motel in Kentucky, and Monroe invited Baker to his room to work on a tune he was trying to fashion. Monroe would play a section on the mandolin, ask Baker to play it back, and then change it. The process took some time, and in the end “Jerusalem Ridge” emerged. Baker was careful to give Monroe the credit for the composition.
The title is a place. Jerusalem Ridge is an area in the hills near Monroe’s birthplace at Rosine, Kentucky, where his uncle Pen, a mentor, used to play the fiddle late into the evening. The Fiddler’s Companion also notes a likeness to “Glory in the Meeting House,” an old fiddle tune collected from several eastern Kentucky sources, which may be a model or precursor.
Monroe recorded “Jerusalem Ridge” on 10 March 1975, at the first of three sessions at Bradley’s Barn in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, for the album The Weary Traveler (MCA Records, MCA-2173), which came out on 5 January 1976. Kenny Baker recorded it on his County album Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe. Other versions include Bob Black’s on Ladies on the Steamboat (Ridge Runner, 1979), Kevin Burke’s on Up Close (Green Linnet, 1984), a performance by David Grisman, John Hartford and Mike Seeger on Retrograss (Acoustic Disk), and Tony Rice’s on Church Street Blues (Sugar Hill).
