Named after the recording studio where they spent a week recording their debut album,
Longview was a supergroup comprised of six top-ranked traditional bluegrass musicians and vocalists. With a sound that recalled the bluegrass bands of the 1940s and '50s, the sextet produced a memorable tribute to the roots of the hill-country sound.
Longview was first conceived during a late night jam session at the Denton, North Carolina Bluegrass Festival in 1994. A celebration of Rounder Records' 25th anniversary, the session featured
James King, Dudley Cornell and
Don Rigsby.
King, who had recorded with
Ralph Stanley in the 1980s, had garnered acclaim with his solo albums including Lonesome And Then Some in 1997 and
These Old Pictures in 1995. Cornell, whose father had played with the Johnson Boys in the Washington, D.C. area in the 1950s, had sung lead and played guitar with the
Johnson Mountain Boys and had replaced the late
John Duffey in the
Seldom Scene.
Rigsby had played mandolin and sang high tenor vocals in a lengthy list of bands, including the
Bluegrass Cardinals,
J.D. Crowe & the New South and the
Lonesome River Band.
The magic generated during the jam session was reinforced a few months later during a similar jam session at a bluegrass festival in Ohio that featured Cornell, fiddler
Glen Duncan and banjo player
Joe Mullins.
Duncan, who co-led
Lonesome Standard Time from 1991 to 1995, was a veteran of recording sessions with
Bill Monroe,
Jim & Jesse, the
Osborne Brothers,
Reba McEntire and
Barbara Mandrell, while
Mullins had been a member of
Traditional Grass from 1983 until 1995.
At the encouragement of
Ken Irwin, co-owner of Rounder, the five musicians came together with bass player
Marshall Wilborn of the
Lynn Morris Band for a week in December 1995 at the Long View Recording studiocomplex in North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Recording most tunes live without overdubs, the group cut three songs per day for five consecutive days and performed a live show for a small audience. With a focus on traditional-sounding songs by the
Louvin Brothers,
Don Reno and
Ralph Stanley, the week-long session resulted in an album of tight ensemble playing and emotionally rich vocal harmonies.
High Lonesome followed in mid-1999. ~ Craig Harris