The Honey Dewdrops’ latest album, Here in the Mountains, has an origin story that goes back to the summer of 1960 in the vast Arabian desert outside of the Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran.

That’s where a beautiful CIA operative met a dashing Air Force counterintelligence officer and the rest, as they say, makes for an incredible backstory for a wonderful collection of songs by one of my all-time favorite bands. Really.

The Honey Dewdrops, husband and wife duo of Kagey Parrish and Laura Wortman, have been consistently putting out captivating, innovative, and original roots music since they burst on the scene on March 15, 2008. Remember where you were that day?

If you were listening to the radio, you probably do because you would have heard The Honey Dewdrops win Prairie Home Companion’s “People in their Twenties Talent Contest.” But it was no contest. Their performance that night absolutely floored the audience at The Fitzgerald Theater and left Garrison Keillor almost tongue-tied when he presented them with the Wobegon Idol Trophy.

Parrish and Wortman describe The Honey Dewdrops’ sound as “experimental folk.” That’s probably as good of a two-word description of their music as any, but it doesn’t come close to capturing what makes this band so exceptional. Both Parrish and Wortman are first-rate musicians who play multiple instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, and banjo. But it’s their real-life harmonies that first catch your attention, and their compelling original songs that keep drawing you back.

The Honey Dewdrops’ last album, Light Behind Light, received widespread acclaim upon its release. It was dubbed an “instant classic” by Maryland Roots Music.com. No Depression Magazine said of it, “The core of The Honey Dewdrops’ sound remains their perfectly paired playing and harmonies that can raise chills and warm hearts, sometimes in the same song.” Light Behind Light, which was recorded at Clean Cuts Studios in Baltimore, includes nine outstanding originals including Holy Hymn, Moonpies, and Weep, which all have become fan favorites and mainstays of their live shows.

I sat down recently with The Honey Dewdrops to talk about Here in the Mountains and the Maryland music scene. Parrish and Wortman have been active in the Baltimore music and arts community since moving to Charm City from Virginia over a dozen years ago.

I asked them if they felt pressure to top Light Behind Light when they were contemplating its follow up. “No,” Wortman said. “We are never trying to top an album. We’re just moving through our evolution as musicians and each album is just a reflection of where we are at the time.”

But still, anticipation builds when it’s been a while since your last album. In the years between Light Behind Light and Here in the Mountains the pair had turned their artistic attentions elsewhere: Parrish to writing instrumentals and Wortman to her side project band, Golden Aster.

Although they didn’t acknowledge it at the time, on some level they were seeking inspiration for the next Honey Dewdrops album. And the universe responded. In a most unlikely way. Enter Jace Goodling.

Goodling is an amateur musician and a longtime fan of The Honey Dewdrops. He lives on a farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Waynesboro, Virginia. Among his other pursuits, he runs Goat Busters. It’s a business he started in 2008 that employs herds of goats to clear land and control invasive vegetation in an eco-friendly and imaginative way. (Check it out at vagoatbusters.com)

In 2021, Goodling completed a quest he had been relentlessly pursuing for over 33 years. He wanted to celebrate his success and radiate his joy into the world in the best way he knew possible: through the music of The Honey Dewdrops. He approached Parrish and Wortman with an idea for a collaboration. It would still be a Honey Dewdrops album, but it would be inspired by his story. Goodling would provide input on the songs and their tone, emotion, and instrumentation. Parrish and Wortman would take care of the rest.

The Honey Dewdrops were intrigued, but hesitant. They had never done anything like this before, but something about it felt right to them. “We were looking for a project, but didn’t realize it at the time,” Parrish said. Wortman added, “Whatever reservations we had fell away when we talked with Jace about how he wanted this album to express his gratitude.”

Goodling was grateful for so much. He was adopted as a four-month-old into a wonderful family where he had an idyllic upbringing in the countryside of Central Virginia. He always expressed to his adoptive family how thankful he was for their love and support. As he grew older, however, he was overcome by a feeling that he wanted to share his sense of gratitude with his birthmother and to thank her personally for all she had done to lay the foundations for a good life for him.

“I arrived at adulthood with no hang-ups whatsoever regarding my own identity,” Goodling said. “Still, especially for a history buff like me, there were questions lingering in the back of my mind.” He could not have imagined the twists and turns and the many years that would pass before those questions were answered.

When he consulted the agency that handled his adoption, it boasted that it had a 100% success rate in locating birth parents. After two years of fruitless searching, the agency threw up its hands. His case was a first for them. Professional psychics and the power of the Internet and his own investigations also arrived at dead ends. It was as if Goodling’s birthmother had meticulously covered her tracks before vanishing into thin air.

But like in an episode of TV’s CSI, the technology eventually caught up with her. After Goodling posted his DNA results online for a second time, a biological second cousin, who was a genealogy hobbyist, reached out to him. He finally had some answers. He learned that his birthmother was in fact a spy when she conceived Goodling while on assignment in Saudia Arabia. And during the adoption process she deliberately obscured her past to make it difficult for anyone to find her.

Goodling discovered that he had a whole other family, including half-brothers and half-sisters, through his birthmother. “Over the next couple years, I endeavored to meet my newfound kin,” Goodling said. “And with very few exceptions, I was welcomed into the fold with warm hearts and open arms.” The one notable exception is his birthmother, who declined his efforts to communicate with her. But still, for Goodling, his quest left him with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. It was a feeling he just had to share.

The resulting album, Here in the Mountains, is unmistakably a Honey Dewdrops project. Don’t get me wrong, Goodling’s fingerprints are all over it, but at its core, Here in the Mountains is Parrish and Wortman doing what they do best: picking and singing original songs that honor the human experience. It’s a welcome addition to their canon and a fitting follow up to Light Behind Light.

Here in the Mountains is more honky-tonky and classic country than Honey Dewdrops’ fans may be used to. In deference to Goodling, the album has fewer straight-up sad songs, too, than the typical Honey Dewdrops affair. But when you become familiar with Goodling’s story and the context for these songs, the album blossoms. She Wanted Me, an upbeat ditty about test driving a pickup truck, reveals itself as an exploration of the darker side of giving up an infant for adoption in 1961 America.

Parrish and Wortman took a different approach to recording and producing this album. Rather than using a professional studio, Here in the Mountains was recorded in their home and gave Parrish a chance to show off his skills as a sound engineer. He set about creating a tone on Here in the Mountains that’s warmer and more orchestral than the band’s previous recordings. The album feels like a hug, a comforting embrace from a new-found family member.

A great example of this is the title track, which first appeared on Golden Aster’s Marcescence. In its original incarnation, Here in the Mountains is essentially a banjo tune. On the new album, Parrish has added layers to create a bigness, a richness in this recording that somehow still preserves the song’s warmth and subtlety.

Another reimagined song is Silver Lining. Like Here in the Mountains, this new version neatly illustrates the band’s evolution as artists. When first released in 2012, Silver Lining was bright, brassy and showed off The Honey Dewdrops’ chops as pickers and performers. The 2024 version is more concerned with evoking a feeling and emotion than in impressing insiders with its technical prowess.

But what really sets Here in the Mountains apart from other albums in their catalog is The Honey Dewdrops’ vocal performances. Parrish’s singing, which can be higher on the register, is perfectly suited to the material here. His voice captures the childlike longing and naivety and innocence pervading these songs. Once you learn the album’s backstory, the mastery of Parrish’s performance throughout becomes apparent.

One of the album’s highlights is Goodbye. When Goodling first heard the song’s recording, something about it didn’t sound right to him, and he suggested that the band take another stab at it. And it’s a good thing he did. No doubt Wortman is an accomplished singer, but she takes her talent to another level on Goodbye. Her phrasing and her tone are spot on and evoke just the right amount of pathos. Nobody, but nobody does lonely songs better than Parrish and Wortman.

Here in the Mountains closes with an instrumental violin solo by Goodling. Peace Behind the Bridge recreates the scene after Goodling was welcomed by many of his long-lost family members at their reunion at a lake in Wisconsin.

“I’d spent my whole life searching for a place I knew not where, by a name I never heard,” Goodling said. “Standing on the shore of Hunter Lake playing Peace Behind The Bridge on my fiddle was one of the most fulfilling and religious experiences of my life…and I was certain I had arrived.”

Here in the Mountains stands as a testament to Goodling’s (and The Honey Dewdrops’) arrival.