Mountain Home Music Company

11/18/2025

Shout out to Country Music News International for featuring "Virginia Girl" from Balsam Range 🎶

Bluegrass Ballad of Distance: Balsam Range Captures the High-Lonesome Heartbreak of a “Virginia Girl” at Country Music News International

11/17/2025

Big thanks to Apple Music for featuring "Dark Clouds" from Jesse Smathers Music on the New In Americana playlist! 🎶 Listen here. 👇

Playlist · 149 Songs

11/17/2025

Thanks to Bluegrass Today for sharing "Working Man Blues" from Bryan Sutton with Doc Watson! 🎶 Have you heard it yet?

Mountain Home Music has released Working Man Blues, the opening track from their much-anticipated album for flatpick guitar maestro Bryan Sutton.

11/17/2025

Congrats to Balsam Range!

Balsam Range goes #1 on the BanjoRadio Top 20!

#1 - "Virginia Girl" by Balsam Range
#2 - "My Runaway" by Kenny & Amanda Smith
#3 - "Cost of Living" by Authentic Unlimited

Check out the full Top 20 at BanjoRadio.com, and If you'd like us to email it to you each week, sign up for our email list on the home page!

11/17/2025

Huge thanks to The Bluegrass Situation for featuring "What Kind of Memory Will You Be" from Gena Britt 's new album, Streets, Rivers, Dreams & Heartaches!

Fridays mean it's time for our new music round-up! This time, enjoy bluegrass, acoustic guitar, Americana, and more.

11/17/2025

Thanks to No Depression for sharing the news that Vickie Vaughn's album is coming soon! (This Friday, 11/21, in fact!)

Country-rock legend Lucinda Williams announced her first new music in three years, World’s Gone Wrong due out January 23, 2026 via Highway 20 Records. The nine-track record includes a cover of Bob Marley’s “So Much Trouble In The World” featuring Mavis Staples and guest vocalists Norah Jones...

11/14/2025

Vickie Vaughn's album, Travel On, will be out in one week! 🎶 Pre-save/add it here 👉 https://clg.lnk.to/vv-Travel.On

11/14/2025

"Old Hickory" from Andy Leftwich will be out in one week! 🎶 Pre-save/add it here 👉 https://clg.lnk.to/al-OldHickory

11/14/2025

🎶 NEW MUSIC 🎶

His last two singles are both still on the air, but Jesse Smathers Music — singer/guitarist with the fabled Lonesome River Band — has too much to offer in his distinctive blend of bluegrass, old-time and folk sensibilities to slow down. So he's back with an equally distinctive discovery in his latest single, “Dark Clouds.”

“‘Dark Clouds’ is a beautiful, thought-provoking ballad I learned from early country music pioneer and Grand Ole Opry star Kirk McGee,” he says. “The original recording is obscure, but the song he composed carries a thoughtful and deep lyric, painting a lonesome image of feeling existentially lost. This song is a prayer for finding one’s way in life; a desperate plea to be put on the right path.”

Indeed, “Dark Clouds”'s troubled mood is established at its outset, as Hunter Berry’s mournful fiddle outlines the song’s melody over restrained back-up from Smathers, mandolinist Nick Goad, Joe Hannabach (bass) and banjo man Corbin Hayslett, whose intriguing mix of old-time and bluegrass techniques stands out from start to finish. Those accustomed to hearing Smathers normally high-ranging, often good-humored voice will find a new dimension in his somber, lower-register approach here — framed in the chorus by harmonies from Goad and Patrick Robertson — as he delivers the lyric’s veiled depiction of uncertainty and helplessness:

My whole life through I searched to find
My special place among mankind
Each road I take, it seems, is wrong
I keep hearing this sad, sad song
…
Dark clouds moving across the sun
The earth grows black and once again I’m blind
Ill will is singing a sad, sad song
Lord help my wandering feet to find the place, it’s time

“I am fascinated by the lyrical weight of many old tunes,” confesses Smathers. “It's so beautifully and poetically written. Though the chorus eerily goes to a minor chord, the beautiful major melody backing up the verses, help tonally convey the sense of hope in finding where ‘one’ belongs. For me, this song is a beautiful reminder of those low times I've experienced and how a similar prayer placed me on the right path. I hope you enjoy ‘Dark Clouds.’"

Listen to it here: https://clg.lnk.to/js-DarkClouds

11/14/2025

🎶 NEW MUSIC 🎶

Eighteen Mile is making a strong showing with their debut single, “Above The Clouds” — already it’s topped the Bluegrass Today Gospel chart more than once since its September release — but the youthful quintet is already back with a follow-up.

“I’ve always been intrigued by the mental picture of Moses climbing up Mount Sinai to meet God in Exodus 34,” says multi-instrumentalist Carson Aaron, who wrote and sings lead on “What Mercy Means.”

“The Bible paints a picture that the mountain was dark and terrifying,” he continues, “and it even describes earthquakes and thunder, all because the Holy presence of God was there. I wrote this song to capture the divine tension of a Powerful, Holy God meeting an unholy man. The song then relates the Bible story to my personal story — that even though I deserve the punishment that comes from being a sinner before a Holy God, He surprises me with overflowing mercy every morning instead.”

Punctuated by an appropriately contemplative melodic theme from fiddler Savannah Aaron — sometimes alone, sometimes doubled by Jack Ritter’s subdued banjo — "What Mercy Means" features pristine harmonies from Ritter and Emily Guy that give gentle support to the song’s finely crafted, deeply felt chorus:

He said, I am merciful and gracious, and full of love for thee
The Giver of all good things to those who call on Me
I am still the God of justice and the guilty won’t go free
But watch and I will show you just what mercy means

Produced, like its predecessor, by renowned fiddle and mandolin player Andy Leftwich “What Mercy Means” offers its timeless lesson in a musical form that listeners are already finding fits within a long-lived and deeply beloved bluegrass gospel lineage.

"What Mercy Means" is streaming in Dolby Atmos spatial audio on Apple Music , Amazon Music and TIDAL

Listen to it here: https://clg.lnk.to/em-WMM