“I Haven’t Seen Mary in Years” was written by Damon Black, the Missouri songwriter whose songs found their way to Bill Monroe, Porter Wagoner and Jimmy Martin. Mel Tillis made the first recording in 1968, but the song became known through Bill Monroe and his son James, who cut it in Nashville on March 26, 1969, with James singing lead. Decca released it that May as a single backed with Monroe’s instrumental “Crossing the Cumberlands,” and it later anchored the pair’s 1973 album Father and Son. Porter Wagoner recorded it the same year. The lyric is a man’s reckoning with a woman he has not seen in years, walking back over the memory of her and the home they once shared.