“Going Up” (often written “Goin’ Up”) is a gospel song by the brothers Vern and Rex Gosdin, both born in Woodland, Alabama. They recorded it with the Hillmen, the bluegrass band they had with the young mandolin player Chris Hillman, at World Pacific Studios in Hollywood in the early 1960s. Vern sang lead and played guitar, Rex sang tenor and played bass, and Don Parmley played banjo. The Hillmen’s recordings were first issued in 1969, as The Hillmen on the Together label; Sugar Hill reissued the album in 1981.
The singer pictures a man waiting at the pearly gates who will let him in, and he is going there to see his Savior, who will free his soul from sin. In the chorus the backing voices echo each “going up,” and the last verse has him wanting to be ready when he is called, in a long white robe and golden slippers.
Bluegrass bands kept finding the song after the Hillmen album came out. J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys recorded it at Lemco Studios in Lexington, Kentucky, for The Model Church (Lemco, 1971), with Doyle Lawson on guitar, Larry Rice on mandolin and Bob Slone on bass. Roy Crockett and the Pleasant Valley Boys cut it for Lemco in December 1972, and Red and Murphy and Co. included it on Pall Mall Reds (1979). A San Diego band, Damascus Road, made it the title track of their 1980 album, and Larry Stephenson sang it on Sweet Sunny South (Outlet, 1982) with David and Don Parmley singing harmony. Lorraine Jordan and Carolina Road opened their 2021 gospel album I Can Go to Them (Pinecastle) with it, with Randy Graham singing lead on the verses and Jordan on the chorus.
