Lonesome River Band wonders about “No Business Mountain”

After the good-humored backward glance to days gone by in “Square Dance Friday Night,” Lonesome River Band offers a new take on a familiar country music tale with their new single for Mountain Home Music Company, “No Business Mountain.”

Led by mandolinist Adam Miller, “No Business Mountain” takes a fresh look at a situation that forms the basis of more than one classic country song — that of a smitten young man contemplating a climb up the mountain where the surly father of his beloved is waiting, shotgun in hand. Beginning with an outline of No Business Mountain’s familiarity in the narrator’s youth, the song’s story unwinds at a measured yet buoyant pace, as Miller begins:

You could see it on a clear day from my backyard
I wondered what the view up there was like
Granddaddy warned me ‘bout that mountain
He said son, that’s one that you don’t want to climb

Punctuated by turns from banjo, fiddle, mandolin, acoustic and electric guitars, the story takes its inevitable turn:

Sweet little Ann would come down from the mountain
Play there in the schoolyard every day
At seventeen I knew there’d be no other
I wondered what her dad would have to say

while its catchy chorus supplies the requisitely ominous echo of the grandfather’s words:

There’s no gold in these hills
Just copperheads and moonshine stills
Smell the wood smoke in the air
Nothing good goes on up there
Men have gone up and never come down from
No Business Mountain

“‘No Business Mountain’ is an idea that Barry and Will Hutchens mentioned to me a few years ago,” says bandleader, award-winning banjo player and co-writer Sammy Shelor. “It’s a place the three of us grew up seeing in our youth in Eastern Patrick County, Virginia. I guess we all kind of had the thoughts that are portrayed in this song back in the day, but were never able to explore there. It made perfect sense to put what we thought it was like there in a song. We hope you enjoy the story!!”

“No Business Mountain” is streaming in Dolby Atmos spatial audio on Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL. Listen to it HERE