Blue Moon of Kentucky stands at the birth of two kinds of American music. Bill Monroe wrote it as a slow waltz about the moon over his home state. Eight years later, Elvis Presley cut it in 4/4 on his first single and helped start rock and roll. Monroe answered with a record that did both at once, and that answer is the version most bluegrass bands play today.
Where it came from
Monroe wrote the song in 1945 in his car, on long drives back from shows in Florida. He said he thought about Kentucky and wanted to write a song about the moon. He sang it on the Grand Ole Opry on August 25, 1945. He recorded it on September 16, 1946, at his first session for Columbia Records, with Lester Flatt on guitar and Earl Scruggs on banjo. Columbia released it in early 1947.
In July 1954, a nineteen-year-old Elvis Presley recorded the song at Sun Records in Memphis with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. Black started clowning with the tune in the studio. Producer Sam Phillips liked what he heard and kept the tape rolling. The waltz came out as a driving 4/4 romp. Sun released it as the B-side of “That’s All Right,” Presley’s first single, and in Memphis it drew more airplay than the A-side.
Monroe took notice. On September 4, 1954, he re-recorded the song for Decca with triple fiddles. His new arrangement opened with one round in waltz time, then jumped to a 4/4 pace faster than Presley’s. The honors came later. Kentucky named it the official state bluegrass song in 1988. The Recording Academy added Monroe’s recording to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2002, the Library of Congress picked the 1947 Columbia recording for the first class of the National Recording Registry. Monroe entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1991. Read more about him in our history of bluegrass.
How it works
The first question is which version you mean. Most jams split the difference, the way Monroe did in 1954. The band starts slow in 3/4 for a verse and a chorus. Then it kicks into fast 4/4 for the rest of the song and the solos. If the leader wants the pure 1946 waltz all the way through, they will say so before the count-off.
The chords stay plain. Both sections use the 1, the 4, and the 5, and nothing else. The form has two parts. The main part carries the title line, “Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining.” The second part covers the same three chords under a different melody.
Keys move with the singer. Monroe cut the original in Bb, and mandolin players still learn his break there. Presley sang it in A. The Traditional Tune Archive notates the tune in G, and many jam charts print it in G or A. This page charts it in A, a fair middle ground for most voices. Strong tenors push it up to Bb. The key belongs to whoever sings it, so name it before you start. One voice carries the lead. Find more standards in our songbook.
Recordings worth hearing
Start with Monroe’s 1947 Columbia side. It is the pure waltz, with Flatt and Scruggs in the band, and it is the recording the Library of Congress preserved. Presley’s 1954 Sun side is two minutes of rockabilly being born. Monroe’s September 1954 Decca re-cut answers it with triple fiddles, slow and then fast. Patsy Cline and Ray Charles both recorded the song, proof of how far it traveled. Paul McCartney sang it on Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) in 1991, playing the Monroe waltz first and the Elvis romp second. A McCartney studio take from 1974 surfaced in 2024 on One Hand Clapping. LeAnn Rimes covered it in 1997, and Alan Jackson brought it back to a string band on The Bluegrass Album in 2013.
Sources
Facts on this page come from the Library of Congress National Recording Registry essays by Richard Smith and Ricky Skaggs, the registry’s 2002 induction list, the Grammy Hall of Fame, State Symbols USA, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, Peghead Nation, the Traditional Tune Archive, and the Paul McCartney Project.