Although he was best known as the longest-serving member of the United States Senate, Robert C. Byrd, who died Monday at 92, also was an old-time and bluegrass fiddler. On July 27, Virginia-based County Records plans to reissue a bluegrass album recorded by Byrd, who represented West Virginia for more than half a century in the Senate and also served as the chamber’s majority leader for 11 years.

Entitled Mountain Fiddler, the album originally released in 1978, also features Country Gentlemen band members Doyle Lawson on guitar, James Bailey on banjo, and Spider Gilliam on bass fiddle. The album was produced by Barry Poss, who later became founder and president of Sugar Hill Records. Sen. Byrd was reportedly persuaded to make a commercial recording of his music after he recorded some fiddle tunes for the Library of Congress in 1977. The album’s tracks include “Red Bird,” “Turkey In The Straw,” There’s More Pretty Girls Than One,” “Cripple Creek,” “Forked Deer,” “Don’t Let Your Sweet Love Die,” “Cumberland Gap,” “Rye Whisky,” “Durang’s Hornpipe,” “Roving Gambler,” “Old Joe Clark,” “Wish I Had Stayed In The Wagon Yard,” “Come Sundown She’ll Be Gone,” and “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.”

Inspired by Clark Kessinger and other musicians in the Mountain State that he called home, Byrd acquired his love of fiddling at an early age. And old-time rural string music remained a lifelong passion. The Senator was known to keep a fiddle in his office and break it out from time to time.