“Carolina in the Pines” was written by Michael Martin Murphey, then recording as Michael Murphey. Epic released it in August 1975 as the second single from his album Blue Sky – Night Thunder, after “Wildfire,” with “Without My Lady There” on the other side. Bob Johnston produced the album and the single. It reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. A newspaper interview from July 1975 quotes Murphey saying he tried to write a love song about his wife, whose name was Caroline, and to make it about her as an individual rather than as a supporter of him.
The words open with a woman who says she has known him a long time and speaks of being in love with every mountain she has climbed, of trails far above the timberline. From that night on, he says, he knew he would write songs with Carolina in the pines. Later verses take in the phases of the moon and a wood stove burning while frost shows on the windows, and the title line keeps returning: there are nights, he sings, when he only feels right with Carolina in the pines.
Bluegrass bands were recording it within a year or two. North Country Grass included it on Kentucky’s Callin’ (Old Homestead, 1976), with Joe McKinney singing lead. B.G. Express recorded it in December 1976 at K.A. Studios in Roanoke, Virginia, with Johnny Ellis on lead vocal and Ricky Ellis on mandolin, for their Outlet LP Moving Bluegrass Coast to Coast. Southbound recorded it in March 1977 for the Rebel LP Southbound, with Jimmy Haley singing lead and Mike Auldridge on dobro. Harley Allen sang it in October 1982 sessions with Vassar Clements and Josh Graves for the Folkways album Across the Blue Ridge Mountains (1983).
Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver recorded it for Once and for Always (Sugar Hill, 1985), with Lawson, Terry Baucom, Randy Graham and Jimmy Haley singing, and Mike Auldridge on dobro. Haley had sung it eight years earlier with Southbound. Special Consensus recorded it at Le Garage Studio in Nashville for Route 10 (Pinecastle, 2002), with Josh Williams on lead.
