“Denver Belle” is a Kenny Baker original, recorded by Baker on his 1970 album A Baker’s Dozen — Country Fiddle Tunes. The tune is in the key of C, played in standard GDAE fiddle tuning. Baker has described “Denver Belle” as a piece passed down through his Kentucky family — he learned it from his grandfather, aunt, and father, all of whom played some form of the tune.
The tune’s character — described as part country rag, part breakdown — reflects the pre-bluegrass family-fiddle tradition that Baker grew up in. Kenny Baker (1926–2011) joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1957 and remained a Blue Grass Boy on and off for 25 years, and his Bill Monroe–era recordings established him as one of the most influential bluegrass fiddlers of the 20th century. A Baker’s Dozen — recorded during a period when Baker was performing both with Monroe and as a solo artist for County Records — brought a number of his family-tradition tunes into the broader recorded record.
“Denver Belle” has been recorded since by Norman Blake and Red Rector, Victor Furtado, J. P. and Danielle Fraley, Sandy Rothman, and others. It sits in the second tier of Kenny Baker tunes — less universal than “Big Sandy River” or “Jerusalem Ridge,” but kept current by fiddlers who specialize in the deeper Baker repertoire.