Walls of Time

Bill Monroe and Peter Rowan are credited by Wikipedia and MusicBrainz, and Rowan wrote it with Monroe in the 1960s while a Bluegrass Boy; a Rambles review quotes Monroe's biographer Richard Smith saying Rowan had to keep reminding Bill that he deserved co-writing credit. The review adds that it may be the greatest bluegrass song ever written, depending on the criteria. We could not find Monroe's first recording of it.

The upload we hold is on a Ricky Skaggs topic channel, so it is Skaggs's own recording and not a Skaggs and Rice duet; the 1980 duo album does not contain it. MusicBrainz lists "Walls of Time" as track one of Ancient Tones (Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Skaggs Family Records, January 26, 1999, 4:20), which won the 2000 Grammy for best bluegrass album and reached 46 on the country albums chart, but that this is our exact recording is an inference, not proven. Peghead Nation teaches Skaggs's mandolin solo from that version, in B, as a contemporary bluegrass mandolin classic. Tony Rice recorded the song separately with Rowan on Quartet (Rounder, January 2007), at 5:46, and Rowan wrote a memoir titled Walls of Time. We found no source for Skaggs and Rice performing it together.