“So Happy I’ll Be” is credited to Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. They recorded it with the Foggy Mountain Boys on 11 December 1949 in Cincinnati, at the same Mercury session that produced “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” It is sung as a quartet: Flatt has the lead, Curly Seckler the tenor, Scruggs the baritone and Howard Watts the bass, with Flatt and Scruggs both on guitar. Mercury issued it on 15 June 1950 as the B-side of Flatt’s “Is It Too Late Now” (Mercury 6268). In 1960 it was reissued on the LP Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs with the Foggy Mountain Boys (Mercury MG 20542).
The singer is waiting for the day his sorrows end and he goes home to heaven. There he will join the heavenly choir, meet his Saviour face to face and thank him for his care, and be reunited with the loved ones who went before. In the chorus, grief and pain are gone for good.
The Bluegrass Album Band recorded it on 19 October 1981 at 1750 Arch Studios in Berkeley, California, for The Bluegrass Album, Vol. 2 (Rounder 0164, 1982). Tony Rice sang lead, Doyle Lawson tenor, J.D. Crowe baritone and Bobby Hicks bass, with Todd Phillips on bass fiddle. In 1991 the Bluegrass Band, with Dudley Connell, Butch Robins, Larry Stephenson and David McLaughlin, included it on Shine Hallelujah Shine (Hay Holler), a set of sacred songs from the early days of bluegrass. Rhonda Vincent & the Rage performed it on their 2005 Rounder concert video Ragin’ Live.
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