The Swanee Presents: Lonesome River Band with Grass Strings

Few bluegrass groups have been around for forty years, and even fewer have been more popular, more widely admired, or more influential for as long as Mountain Home Music Company recording artists Lonesome River Band. By the early 1990s, they were winning key awards and topping the charts, and while members have come and gone, the quintet’s reputation for crafting essential, archetypal bluegrass has only grown with each passing year.

Now, the bluegrass powerhouse releases a new album, Heyday, surrounding four hit singles with a set of songs that serves both to introduce new members and to extend the group’s influential legacy still further.

Leading off the project is the group’s first single — and first No. 1 — of 2022, “Mary Ann Is A Pistol.” Sung by new member Adam Miller (mandolin), the song, written by long-time Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Dennis Linde, is a sly subversion of…