BLUE MOON OF KENTUCKY

Created on 18/04/2003
Latest update on 28/06/2023

Artist: Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys
Author: Bill Monroe
Label: Columbia
Year: 1946

This classic has never been a hit; check out the C&W top-40, you won't find it there. It did become Bill Monroe's most famous composition in the classic bluegrass line-up: Chubby Wise (fiddle), Howard Watts (bass), Lester Flatt (guitar) and Earl Scruggs (banjo). Monroe played it like a waltz in an attempt to capitalize on an earlier success with Kentucky Waltz. Again a waltz, that's in fact what irritated Elvis, reason why his 'rockabilly'-cover sounds like a pure parody, triggered by bassist Bill Black.

Covers:

1954:

Stanley Brothers

1954:

Elvis Presley [B-side of Sun debut single That's All Right and the only song he ever performed on the Grand Ole' Opry]

1954:

Cliffie Stone

1963:

Patsy Cline

1965:

Ray Charles

1966:

George Jones

1969:

Al Kooper

1969:

Jerry Reed

1973:

Shakin' Stevens

1978:

Jerry Lee Lewis

1978:

Whirlwind

1979:

Nick Lowe

1979:

Geraint Watkins

1984:

Rick Nelson

1989:

Boxcar Willie

1991:

Paul McCartney

1993:

Kentucky Headhunters

1993:

Primal Scream

1997:

LeAnn Rimes

2000:

Billy Swan [in the Sun studio]

2000:

John Fogerty [on Bill Monroe tribute]

2001:

Tom Petty

2011:

Brian Setzer

2013:

Alan Jackson

Without an alert Sam Phillips, rock 'n roll might have been a footnote in music history and Blue Moon Of Kentucky forever a decent country waltz by Bill Monroe and nobody else. Rockabilly didn't even exist when Elvis started goofing around with this tune and without Sam's ad rem recording instincts, the momentum would have vanished in the haze, period. Hell that's different. That's a pop song now, nearly 'bout! is what we hear him yell after the take. Precisely what he was looking for.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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