The name was meant as a joke. It was 1972, and musicians Joe Triplett and Happy Acosta were living in a shabby house on Rolfe Street, just north of Rosslyn. Veterans of the D.C. rock ’n’ roll scene, they wanted to play more country music, so they cast about for a band name that fit.
“We can’t call ourselves ‘Happy and Joe,’ ” Triplett recalls thinking, “so Happy said, ‘We’ll call the band The Rosslyn Mountain Boys.’ ”
There weren’t any real mountains in Arlington, of course. The “mountains” were the high-rise buildings of the Rosslyn skyline.
Even as disco began to dominate local airwaves, the band developed a rootsy country sound, playing songs by legends like Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. They secured a weekly gig at the Shamrock bar in Georgetown, drawing a capacity crowd of “hippies and college kids,” according to drummer Bob Berberich. This led to a regular Wednesday night gig at the original Birchmere location in Shirlington.
In 1976, the Boys released a self-titled album of original music featuring Triplett on lead vocals and guitar; Berberich on vocals and drums; Tommy Hannum on vocals and pedal-steel guitar; Peter Bonta on vocals, guitar and piano; and Barry Foley on bass. (By then Acosta had left the band, though he played electric guitar on a couple of the album tracks.)
Lyrics about heartbreak and loss filled songs titled “Right Before My Eyes” and “Gerry’s Velvet Hardhat.”
“I wonder,” Triplett sings on one track, “did the truth just pass me by, or did I just not see what was right before my eyes….”
The album cover features a colorized photo of the Boys posing before a pond that once sat near the Key Bridge, with Rosslyn’s high-rises in the background. The record soared up D.C. music charts, and the band eventually shared bills with artists such as Emmylou Harris, Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette and Jerry Lee Lewis.
As the 1970s drew to a close, the band released another album that downplayed the country elements. The record tanked and the Boys broke up shortly after.
“Changing our sound is what destroyed us,” says Berberich, who moved to Maryland.
In the decades that followed, the musicians regrouped for occasional reunion shows and even recorded a third album. Triplett, now living on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley, says those days are behind them. The Rolfe Street house is long gone. Many of the original Rosslyn “mountains” have been replaced, too.
But the music lives on, thanks to platforms like Spotify and YouTube. As Triplett says, “We had great fun.”