“Hills and Home” is a bluegrass song of homesickness, introduced on record at the end of the 1950s by the Country Gentlemen, the Washington, D.C., band that helped reshape bluegrass for a new, more urban audience.
The lyric belongs to one of bluegrass music’s most enduring themes — the longing of someone far away for the mountains and the home place left behind. In the hands of the early Country Gentlemen the song became a vehicle for the band’s hallmark: the powerful three-part harmony of Charlie Waller, John Duffey, and Eddie Adcock, voices that gave even a simple homesick lyric real lift and drama.
The song stayed in the bluegrass repertoire as a harmony showcase. The version heard here is by Longview, a bluegrass “supergroup” assembled from members of several leading bands, who recorded it for their 2002 album “Lessons in Stone” — a project rooted in just this kind of classic, harmony-rich material.
