“Cabin in the Hills” — more often titled “Cabin on the Hill,” the words the lyric actually sings — was written by B. L. Shook. Flatt and Scruggs recorded it in 1959, and it reached the country charts that year.
The song is a piece of plain nostalgia, the singer longing for an old home cabin on a hillside and the family life it once held. That sentiment — the lost rural homeplace — runs through a great deal of bluegrass, and Flatt and Scruggs gave it one of its most enduring settings.
The recording remained a standard of the Flatt and Scruggs catalog and has been taken up by many later bands. It is a small example of how the duo could take a simple sentimental lyric and, through clean ensemble playing and Lester Flatt’s warm lead, make it stick.
