“Road to Columbus” is a Bill Monroe instrumental that first reached record in 1976, on another man’s album. Kenny Baker, Monroe’s fiddler, made it the opening track of Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe (County 761), twelve Monroe tunes recorded in Nashville on 29 and 30 March 1976. It was one of three previously unreleased pieces on the record, with “Mississippi Waltz” and “Fiddler’s Pastime.”
Monroe had been noncommittal about the session, but he arrived at the studio with his mandolin and, at Baker’s request, played on every tune. Joe Stuart played guitar and Vic Jordan banjo, both former Blue Grass Boys. Bob Black on banjo and Randy Davis on bass would later join Monroe’s band. Douglas B. Green wrote the liner notes. Monroe never recorded the tune with his own band, although he played it on stage at the Ryman Auditorium on 13 June 1995, and a recording of that show later appeared on an unofficial CD-R.
It is a breakdown in A major, and David Brody printed it in The Fiddler’s Fakebook (1983). Dry Branch Fire Squad recorded it for their first album, on Rite in 1977, with Ron Thomason on mandolin. Dave Evans and River Bend put it on Goin’ Round This World (Rebel, 1981), and Sally Van Meter played the lead on dobro on All in Good Time (Sugar Hill, 1991), with Tony Furtado, John Reischman and Mike Marshall. Baker returned to it in 2000 on Cotton Baggin’ 2000 (OMS), with Jesse McReynolds on mandolin and Josh Graves on dobro. In 2013 the banjo player Noam Pikelny released Noam Pikelny Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe (Compass), which adapts Baker’s fiddle arrangements for banjo note for note and in the same running order, so “Road to Columbus” again opens the record. Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, Ronnie McCoury and Mike Bub play with him.
