“Blue Moon Of Kentucky” by Bill Monroe

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“Blue Moon Of Kentucky” by Bill Monroe

	song info     “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” by Bill Monroe is a country song from 1947.     Verse: GCGD GCGDG     Chorus: CGCGD GCGDG     Song Title: Blue Moon Of Kentucky     Artist: Bill Monroe     Genre: country bluegrass     Composer: Copyright © 1946 Bill Monroe     Lead Vocals: Bill Monroe     Guitar: Lester Flatt     Banjo: Earl Scruggs     Recorded: September 16, 1946     Released: September 1947     Label: Columbia     This song is the number four (4) song of 1947 according to Digital Dream Door’s Adam. Christian Science Monitor #11 best country song of all time.     Number of listens: 20596     Current rank: 343 (updated weekly)     Highest rank: 331 (play the video all the way through to register a vote for this song) Translations courtesy of Apple and Google.

    Summary quotation from Wikipedia:

    “Blue Moon of Kentucky” is a waltz written in 1946 by bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and recorded by his band, The Blue Grass Boys. The song has since been recorded by many artists, including Elvis Presley.

    “Blue Moon of Kentucky” is the official bluegrass song of Kentucky. In 2002, Monroe’s version was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2003, CMT ranked “Blue Moon of Kentucky” #11 on its 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music.

    Bill Monroe wrote the song in 1946, recording it for Columbia Records on September 16. It was released in early 1947. At the time, the Bluegrass Boys included vocalist and guitarist Lester Flatt and banjoist Earl Scruggs, who would later form their own bluegrass band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. Both Flatt and Scruggs performed on the recording, although Bill Monroe supplied the vocals on this song.

    The song, described as a “bluegrass waltz”, had become a nationwide hit by 1947 and also became enormously popular with other bluegrass, country, and early rockabilly acts. Although the song was revered by the Grand Ole’ Opry and others, Carl Perkins played an uptempo version of this song in his early live performances.

    The search for another song to release along with “That’s All Right” at Sun Records in July 1954 led to “Blue Moon of Kentucky” via Bill Black. “We all of us knew we needed something,” according to Scotty Moore, and things seemed hopeless after a while. “Bill is the one who came up with “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”…We’re taking a little break and he starts beating on the bass and singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” mocking Bill Monroe, singing the high falsetto voice. Elvis joins in with him, starts playing and singing along with him,” as did Moore himself. Presley, Moore, and Black, with the encouragement of Sam Phillips, transformed Monroe’s slow waltz (3/4 time) into an upbeat, blues-flavored tune in 4/4 time.

    In 1954, The Stanley Brothers recorded a version of the song using Presley’s 4/4 arrangement with bluegrass instrumentation, neatly bridging the stylistic gap between Monroe’s and Presley’s approaches. Bill Monroe subsequently rerecorded and performed the song using a mixture of the two styles, starting the song in its original 3/4 arrangement, then launching into an uptempo 4/4 rendition.

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most recent comment

    Min-jun: I love Bill Monroe.

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