SINGLE RELEASE

For their fourth Mountain Home Music Company single, Benson — that’s the husband-wife duo of acclaimed mandolinist Wayne Benson and award-winning banjo player Kristin Scott Benson and a stellar supporting cast — double down on the bluegrass of their last release with a blistering take on a sleeper from the 1970s, “Red Mountain Wine.”

Though Benson’s rendition makes the song sound like a dyed-in-the-wool ‘grasser, and though it’s been found mostly in the repertoire of new old-time string bands, “Red Mountain Wine” actually came from the pen of Cajun country-rocker Floyd “Gib” Gilbeau, who wrote and recorded it in the early 1970s, shortly before joining the Flying Burrito Brothers. “This is an old song that a lot of people have done,” notes Wayne Benson, before adding, “But we know it from the Lost & Found,” a staple on the bluegrass festival circuit for over 40 years. “I believe one of Kristin’s banjo students was playing it as part of her band, similar to the Lost & Found cut. Then, Kristin had the idea of speeding it up and turning it into a barnburner.”

For help in creating their own version, the Bensons turned to a couple of long-time friends — guitarist Cody Kilby (Travelin’ McCourys) and singer Mickey Harris (Rhonda Vincent & The Rage), with whom Kristin once worked in a band led by Mountain Home labelmate Chris Jones’ wife Sally — a more recent one in the person of fiddler Jim VanCleve, and a newer one still in bassist Paul Watson, who regularly appears in the band of another labelmate, Carley Arrowood. Starting with Kristin’s driving banjo, the cut races through the song’s 3 verses, alternating solos from the two principals and a final chorus before wrapping up, in true bluegrass fashion, just under the two minute mark.

“This one is straight-ahead bluegrass with plenty of mandolin and banjo playing,” Kristin Scott Benson summarizes. “Uptempo and lots of fun to play!”