Biography

Contact information:
ByronHillMusic@gmail.com

Commercial Release Date: July 26, 2024

Featured singles: "Mountain Folks Are Always High", and "Younger".

About the Album:
Byron teamed up with the great multi-instrumentalist songwriter Glen Duncan for more than two years of regular weekly co-writing sessions. Seven of those Hill/Duncan songs comprise Byron’s new album entitled That Old Mountain. The project includes a stellar list of musicians; Cody Kilby on Acoustic Guitar (The Travelin' McCourys, Ricky Skaggs, Bruce Hornsby, The Chieftans, the Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss), Evan Winsor on Bass (Josh Turner, Rhonda Vincent, John Mayer, Doyle Lawson), Jonah Horton on Mandolin (The Kruger Brothers, The Trailblazers, Scott Vestal, John Cowan), Tim Crouch on Fiddle (The Dillards, Alan Jackson, Tom Paxton, Rhonda Vincent, Marty Raybon), Scott Vestal on Banjo (Dolly Parton, Sturgill Simpson, John Cowan, Sam Bush, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dwight Yoakam, Continental Divide, Livewire, Doyle Lawson, Larry Sparks), and Byron Hill all vocals, additional guitar and Irish flute.

Early Radio & Chart activity/interest:
Early radio and radio-syndication interest is very strong. Thank you to Doug Whitley and Hwy 40 Bluegrass (on Bluegrass Jamboree), Michelle Lee & Marsha 2’s Bluegrass Borderline, Walter & Willa’s Bluegrass Breakdown, Frank Hoppe at Bluegrass Etc., Jon Colcord at Music For The Mountain Bluegrass, WRCT 88.3 FM Pittsburgh, PA, and Nichole Marie at KRBX Radio Boise. We’ll list all these we can as we find them or hear about them. Also, many thanks to Rik James at KGLT in Bozeman, MT for the long-time support, and thank you to ALL our friends at Radio!!! If you are a reporter station to any of the charts, please report. It is very much appreciated!! Speaking of charts, the album has entered The Roots Music Report's Top 50 Bluegrass Album Chart for the Week of Aug 10, 2024.

Airplay Direct:
The new album has steadily done very well on the Airplay Direct (radio broadcast downloads) Bluegrass charts. Four songs from the album are in the top ten of the Top 50 APD Bluegrass / Folk Singles chart for July, and for several weeks during July six songs from the album hit the top ten. The album is #8 in the Top 50 APD Bluegrass / Folk Albums chart for July. If you have access to Airplay Direct, please download the Featured Singles. It helps a lot!

Do you need a Physical Copy?
We'll be happy to send you a CD with a One Sheet. Just drop us an email at: bhprecordings@gmail.com and tell us where to send it.

Early Review:
“Byron Hill, one of the most-respected hit songwriters in Nashville, has a new album, “That Old Mountain,” that I highly recommend. With a voice that’s smooth and unaffected, much like the late Don Williams, these seven bluegrass-based tunes are like a fine country wine; they envelop your with wave after wave of nostalgia and wisdom. Hill, a Carolina boy, has written legendary country tunes, dating back to “Fool Hearted Memory” for George Strait, and continuing right up to date. The title track here is wisdom-packed, from a man who has been on top of that chosen mountain in his career, and for my money, still is. A+”-Journalist Michael Clark of Johnson City, TN

Bio:
Byron Hill was raised in North Carolina. By the time he was ten years old, his bluegrass, folk, and country beginnings grew by learning to play along with his Dad who loved to sing songs by The Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Jimmie Rodgers, Flatt and Scruggs, and others.

Years later, while in college at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, Byron was introduced to some different styles of picking, particularly the music of Doc Watson. It was there in 1972 that Byron joined multi-instrumentalist Gene Wooten for a couple of years performing bluegrass around the Boone, Valle Crucis, and Banner Elk areas of NC, at fire halls, clogging and square dances, various local events. and they had a regular gig at the (then) Village Inn on Beech Mountain. After college Gene Wooten moved to Nashville, to play dobro for Wilma Lee Cooper, the Osborne Brothers, and Del and Ronnie McCoury, and Byron returned to his hometown of Winston-Salem, NC and started a trio called Red Cloud, performing many shows in the area 1974-1975.

Byron began taking his songs to Nashville in 1976, and moved to Nashville in 1978 jumping straight into a publishing deal at ATV Music Group writing songs for a wide-range of artists. Bluegrass music remained deeply set in his musical DNA, and over the years his songs have been recorded by many bluegrass artists including Doc & Merle Watson, The Whites, Keith Whitley, Dusty Miller, The Special Consensus, Rhonda Vincent, Lonesome River Band, The Grascals, Bluegrass Etc., The Chapmans, The Seldom Scene, Mo Pitney, Trevor Watson, Dailey & Vincent, Darin & Brooke Aldridge, The Wisemen, Fast Track, and many others.

Byron’s songwriting turned out a long list of hits and recordings by some of the greatest country artists of the time including George Strait ("Fool Hearted Memory"), Johnny Lee ("Pickin' Up Strangers"), Sammy Kershaw ("Politics, Religion And Her"), Gary Allan ("Nothing On But The Radio"), Alabama ("Born Country"), George Jones ("High-Tech Redneck"), Neal McCoy ("If I Was A Drinkin' Man"), Tracy Byrd ("Lifestyles Of The Not So Rich And Famous"), Anne Murray ("Over You"), Larry Stewart, Joe Nichols, Ed Bruce, Mila Mason, Ray Charles, Kenny Rogers, Reba McEntire, Don Williams, John Michael Montgomery, Juice Newton, Randy Travis, Jason Aldean, Trace Adkins, Conway Twitty, Jeff Bates, Highway 101, Barbara Mandrell, Mel McDaniel, Mark Chesnutt, Rhett Akins, The Oak Ridge Boys, Ricky Van Shelton, The Seekers, Colt Ford, Blackhawk, Asleep At The Wheel, Toby Keith, Gene Watson, Margo Smith, Tom Wopat, Mark Wills, The Kendalls, Moe Bandy, Joe Diffie, Hank Thompson, Mila Mason, Doug Supernaw, Charley Pride, Doug Stone, Hey Romeo (Canada), Gil Grand (Canada), Gord Bamford (Canada), Charles Esten & Connie Britton (from the Nashville TV series), and many others.

To date, eighteen Country Music Hall of Fame members have recorded his songs. Byron was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.