“Great High Mountain” is a gospel song by Keith Whitley, written during the years he spent singing bluegrass before his country career. He and Ricky Skaggs, both teenagers, joined Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys in 1970. Whitley came back to Stanley’s band as lead singer and guitarist in the mid-1970s and then sang lead for J. D. Crowe and the New South from 1978 to 1982. He went on to No. 1 country hits with RCA, died on 9 May 1989, and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022.
Larry Sparks recorded the song in March 1978 at Lemco Sound Studio in Lexington, Kentucky. Sparks sang lead and played guitar and mandolin, with Tommy Boyd on banjo, Kirk Brandenberger on fiddle and Mike Carter on bass. It came out in 1980 on John Deere Tractor (Rebel), credited to Whitley.
The words take the image of a steep climb. The singer does not ask God to move the mountain or clear away what he trips on. He asks for help in climbing it and for guidance around the obstacles. The climb is the road to God’s kingdom, the path is full of pitfalls, and the strength to keep going comes from scripture, from belief and from prayer at the altar. Because the chorus opens with the line about not having to move the mountain, the song is also known as “You Don’t Have to Move That Mountain.”
Hot Rize recorded it under that title, as “You Don’t Have to Move the Mountain,” on Untold Stories (Sugar Hill, 1987), with Tim O’Brien singing lead and Jerry Douglas sitting in on dobro. Ralph Stanley recorded it in Nashville for Saturday Night & Sunday Morning (Freeland, 1992), playing banjo behind the voices of Emmylou Harris and Judy Marshall. Missy Raines recorded it for My Place in the Sun (1998), and Nickel Creek’s performance at the Freight & Salvage in San Francisco on 16 November 2000 was included on Reasons Why: The Very Best (Sugar Hill, 2006).
