“This Heart of Mine” was written by Steven F. Brines and Jim Smoak. New Grass Revival recorded it at Jack Clement Recording Studios in Nashville for Fly Through the Country (Flying Fish FF 016, 1975), the band’s second album. It is the first track on the second side. Sam Bush sang lead and played mandolin, John Cowan sang with him and played electric bass, Curtis Burch played guitar and Courtney Johnson banjo. Brines is also credited, with Bush, as writer of three other songs on the album, “Glory,” “All Night Train” and “The Dancer.”
The lyric is a promise built from a list of materials. The singer’s heart is silver and gold, and will shine like a candle when the listener’s world is dark and cold; it is timber and stone, a bridge across the mountains for someone walking alone; and it is iron and steel, and will not turn toward another when the wind is on the hill.
The song has had a quiet life in bluegrass since. Stoney Creek recorded it for a 1978 Lemco album, After Five put it on Walls of Time (1996) with Kim Gardner singing lead, and Jim Smoak himself plays banjo and sings on The Cumberlands’ version on Bridging the Gap (Copper Creek, 2002), with Curtis Burch as a guest. In 2025 the Bibelhauser Brothers recorded it with John Cowan singing harmony.
