“Cabin of Love” was written by Birch Monroe, the fiddle-playing older brother of Bill Monroe, and was first recorded by the Shenandoah Valley Trio in 1951. Birch is the least-known of the musical Monroe brothers, but the song kept his name in the bluegrass repertoire.
The lyric is a straightforward sweetheart song built on one of the form’s most familiar images — the humble cabin as the seat of love and home — the kind of clean, singable material that traditional bands have always favored.
The Lonesome River Band recorded “Cabin of Love” on their 1991 album Carrying the Tradition, and it has also been cut by Peter Rowan with the Nashville Bluegrass Band and by the Dry Branch Fire Squad — a modest standard that has quietly stayed in circulation.
