Biography

These guys have been paying their dues for years and now it's time to cash in. Their tour schedule is busting at the seams and the boys are playing to standing ovations everywhere. Their super silky harmony backed by solid on-time, on-pitch precision rhythm section keeps the crowds on their feet. This is their second release on Mountain Fever Records.


Blake Johnson, from Roxboro, NC, plays the acoustic bass. He started playing the guitar and piano at the age of five with his family in church. When he was fifteen, he played with Second Chance. Blake then played with Jay Kazor and the Bluegrass Connection at the age of eighteen. Two years later, he joined Little Mountain Grass. Blake is now twenty-five.

Mike Johnson, from Roxboro, NC plays the guitar. He grew up in Turbeville, VA where he started playing the guitar at age six. Mike joined his first band when he was twelve and has been playing anything from Southern Gospel music to Bluegrass music. He started playing the piano at age fifteen for The Harmony Believers, a southern gospel group. At nineteen, he toured from coast to coast with Lower Forty Grass. Mike has been with the bluegrass gospel band, Harold Young and Friends, for the last sixteen years. Mike is 53 years old and he is the proud father of Blake Johnson.

Cliff Smith, From Virgilina, VA, plays the banjo. At the age of five, he started playing the guitar; at eight, he began playing the bass and at the age of twelve, he picked up the banjo and the fiddle. Cliff's family played for many square dances around southern Virginia since the 1940's. Cliff, at age twenty started playing with the band, Blue Ridge Thunder. Two years later he played with Stories Creek band. Cliff is currently twenty-six.

David Nance - Born in Oak Ridge NC, now lives in Reidsville NC with his wife Gail and two children, Jordan and Chandler. David started playing the Dobro with his family when he was five years old. He played with several groups while still in Jr. High School and first recorded with ex Bill Monroe banjo player Bobby Atkins and the Countrymen when he was only 14 years old. He then joined, and traveled with, the McPherson Brother's band with his father Clyde and a few years later he left the band to join a new group, Big Sandy Bluegrass based out of Roxboro, NC. This band was fairly successful in a lot of individual and band competitions and band won second place in the Marlboro band competition behind country group Shenandoah.

While playing with Big Sandy Bluegrass, David would meet and eventually got a job with the King of Bluegrass, Jimmy Martin. David would go on to play Dobro and sing tenor with Jimmy Martin for 18 years, longer than any other Sunny Mountain Boy.

In 1990, David was nominated in the top ten for IBMA 'S Dobro Player of the Year. While a Sunny Mountain Boy, David got the opportunity to play Ernest Tubbs' Midnight Jamboree, The Ryman Auditorium, and ultimately the Grand Ole Opry and played dobro and sang tenor on Martin's 1995 recording "Made In The Shade" and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken Volume 3". David also appeared in the documentary "The King Of Bluegrass: The Life And Times of Jimmy Martin".

In 1997, David recorded a solo project "My Own Sweet Time". Prior to Jimmy's death in 2005, David performed on the Grand Ole Opry three times with his childhood heroes Sonny and Bobby, the Osborne Brothers.