The Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys - Million Lonely Days

(Lark LRLP-2040) 1973

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This is a splendid trad-bluegrass album which was recorded on 3 Jan 1973 at Major Recording Studios in Waynesboro, Virginia.

Ralph Meadows guests on the LP which was recorded whilst he was still working as a crane operator at a concrete batch plant, about a month before the Feb 1973 sessions for Ralph "Joe" Meadows Rejoins Bluegrass With The Goins Brothers and Tribute To The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers albums.

The Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys, from Pocahontas County in southern West Virginia, were formed in 1968 by brothers Bill & Richard Hefner, their uncle Glen 'Dude' Irvine and friend Harley Carpenter. 'Dude' who was severely crippled by polio at the age of 5 and who never went to school, was crucial to the bands development. He taught himself to play many instruments & was an in-demand musician locally at picking sessions, square dances and beer joints. He also taught Bill Hefner how to play guitar and was influential on Richard Hefner's picking style. Sadly however, he was ill in the period before the album was recorded, and died shortly afterwards.^[1] He can however be heard on the bands debut 1971 eight-track release 'Pure Old Bluegrass' (Lark LR-1194).

I don't have a copy of 'Million Lonely Days' on vinyl, but the '1968-1973' CD contains both the 1971 debut & the 1973 'Million Lonely Days' LP, and sounds great. The band have strong harmony vocals, with Harley Carpenter in particularly fine form on Working On A Building, Memory Of Your Smile and You're Not Easy To Forget. Joe Meadows' fiddle is used to good effect throughout, being largely predominant in the 'fills' and counterpoint melodies, with Bill Hefner's mandolin also quite prominent. The banjo takes a back-seat on many tracks, being confined to back-up, but is more upfront on A Million Lonely Days, Thinking About You and These Old Blues, which also has a neat lead guitar break.

Three tracks are drawn from Bill Monroe, with versions of I Believe In You Darlin' and Walk Softly On This Heart Of Mine, plus Send Me Angels - an adaptation Walls Of Time with some different lyrics. Flatt & Scruggs and The Stanley's also also the source for Thinking About You and The Memory Of Your Smile respectively; whilst Larry Sparks' classic These Old Blues would have been a new song at the time the album was recorded, and features some fine interplay between the different instruments.

Dwight Diller and Joe Meadows also get to shine on a lovely version of Say Old Man, Can You Play The Fiddle, with the old-time banjo / fiddle closing out the album and making a nice contrast to the blue grass on the preceding 11 tracks.

Three numbers are originals with the mandolin/fiddle/banjo instrumental Mill Point being named after their home community in Pocahontas County. Blue And Lonely is fairly typical bluegrass fare, with a strong melody, and holds it's own amongst the more well-known songs. And the title track, A Million Lonely Days is quite a catchy number, which the band previously cut on their 1971 eight-track debut. 52 years later, the song was picked up by Kenny & Amanda Smith, which led to an a feature on Richard Hefner & the Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys in the April 2025 edition of 'Bluegrass Unlimited'. The revised interest was curiously foreshadowed, when the album was reviewed by the magazine in May 1973, when George B. McCeney concluded his review by saying "This album gets my vote for 'Sleeper of the year'".

Like a lot of these early regional albums, the recording quality is a little muddy, particularly on the vocals, but performance-wise the album has much to offer.

The CD includes liner notes by Carl Fleischhauer (who also wrote the notes & took the photos on the original LP), plus notes by Richard Hefner and Joe Meadows, who writes: "I enjoyed working with these musicians while doing the recording, show dates, and just getting together and having a good time. These were the best musicians to work with. They work right from the heart. You just can't find any better singer than the late Harley Carpenter who did most of the lead singing and the rhythm guitar playing on both these albums. In my mind Harley was one of the best lead singers in the business..."

The bands next album 'Talk Of The County' (Lark LR 2141) 1974, with Wayne Erbsen on fiddle, is also well worth searching for...

• Ralph 'Joe' Meadows: fiddle
• Harley Carpenter: guitar, lead vocal
• Bill Hefner: mandolin, baritone vocal (b)
• Richard Hefner: banjo, tenor vocal (a)
• Dwight Diller: bass (b)

NB: (a) lead vocal on chorus to Working On A Building and A Million Lonely Days. (b) on Say Old Man, Can You Play The Fiddle Dwight Diller plays banjo & Bill Hefner plays guitar.

Other artwork / related images:

[1] Obituary from The Pocahontas Times, Marlinton, WVa 25 Jan 1973, says that Clarence Glen Irvine of Mill Point died 17 Jan 1973 aged 52 at Pocahontas Memorial Hospital after a long illness.