“Windy Mountain” is credited to Curley Cline in the Bluegrass Discography. The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers recorded it at Thomas Studios in Nashville on 26 September 1954 (RCA Victor master 5522) and RCA Victor issued it in January 1955, on the 78 and 45 single 20-5979 (47-5979), backed with “There’s Just One You.” The Bluegrass Discography lists Melvin Goins on guitar, Ray Goins on banjo, James Carson on mandolin, Ezra Cline on bass and Curley Ray Cline on fiddle, with Melvin Goins, Ray Goins and Curley Ray Cline singing. The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers began in Bluefield, West Virginia, as a family band around Ezra Cline and his cousins, and Bobby Osborne and Paul Williams were among those who played in later lineups. Bluegrass Today calls “Windy Mountain” the band’s signature song, and Melvin Goins’s obituary there says the Goins brothers were with the group from late 1953 until mid-1955.
The lyric is a wish to be on a windy mountain, where the treetops scrape the sky and the wind carries off the singer’s worries and his blues. He loves the sound of the wind howling, asks his friends to bury him on the mountain where it will always blow, and sends word to a lover who never knew how much he cared.
When Ray Goins stopped touring, Melvin Goins renamed the band Melvin Goins and Windy Mountain, after the song, and recorded “Windy Mountain” again on that band’s Bluegrass Blues (Hay Holler, 1999). The Goins Brothers had already recorded it on Bluegrass Country (Jalyn, 1971). Other recordings listed in the Bluegrass Discography include the Doug Dillard Band’s What’s That? (Flying Fish, 1986), Longview’s High Lonesome (Rounder, 1999), where it is the opening track, and Retrograss by David Grisman, John Hartford and Mike Seeger (Acoustic Disc, 1999). Bear Family named its 1992 Lonesome Pine Fiddlers CD Windy Mountain.
