Musicians
“Hello City Limits” is credited to Johnny Elgin and the fiddler Benny Martin, though some records name Elgin alone. Its first appearance on record was a 1963 single by the Cantrells on the small KA$H label, backed with “He Ain’t Pickin’ No More.” Martin made his own recording in November 1964 at the Starday Sound Studio in Nashville, singing it over his fiddle, and Starday issued it in 1965 on Starday 743.
The singer starts by greeting the city-limits sign. He has left his worries, troubles and heartaches behind, and he needs a change of scenery to forget them. He hasn’t told a soul where he’ll be, because he doesn’t want the blues to catch up with him, and he may even change his name. Each verse ends on the same line: he is “startin’ out brand new.”
Red Allen and the Kentuckians recorded it on 14 January 1965 at Wynwood Studio in Falls Church, Virginia. Allen sang lead and played guitar, Bill Yates sang tenor and played bass, and Wayne Yates sang baritone and played mandolin, with Bill Emerson on banjo and Chubby Wise on fiddle. Glenmar issued it as a single in April 1965 with “Flowers by My Graveside,” and it was also included on the Kentuckians’ Melodeon LP The Solid Bluegrass Sound of the Kentuckians. Allen recorded the song again in January 1981 at Scruggs Sound Studio in Nashville for the Folkways album Family & Friends, with his son Harley Allen on guitar, Marty Stuart on mandolin and Vassar Clements on fiddle.
Other bands have used it to open a record. The California band High Country put it first on their 1971 Warner Bros. LP High Country, and Hugh Moore made it the title track of his Folkways album Hello City Limits (1986), recorded in August 1985 at Star Recording in Millers Creek, North Carolina. Fiddler Michael Cleveland recorded it for Let ’Er Go, Boys! (Rounder, 2006), with Jeff White singing lead, Dan Tyminski tenor and Cleveland baritone.
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