“Lonesome Pine” was written by Wayne Taylor, the bass player of Blue Highway, and appeared on the band’s album It’s a Long, Long Road (Rebel REB-CD 1719, released 4 July 1995). The whole album was recorded on 27 February 1995 at Suite 2000 in Nashville. Taylor sang the lead, with Shawn Lane and Tim Stafford on harmony; Stafford played guitar, Lane mandolin, Rob Ickes dobro and Jason Burleson banjo, and Taylor played bass.
The lyric is a homesick song of the mountains. The narrator remembers the path back to the one-room house where he was born, his mother’s smile and his father calling his name, and he admits that he left the cabin to look for wealth, fortune and fame. The pine of the title calls him home, and he says he means to go back, to find peace and rest in the stillness of the mountains.
Blue Highway’s recording turned up again on the label’s anthology 35 Years of the Best in Bluegrass, 1960–1995 (Rebel, 1996) and on the Sugar Hill compilation Choice Picks (2000). Iron Horse recorded Taylor’s song on Ridin’ Out the Storm (B Sharp, 2001), with Ricky Rogers singing lead.
