“Lonesome Moonlight Waltz” is a waltz written by Bill Monroe. The earliest documented performance is live: Monroe played it with Doc Watson at Oberlin College, Ohio, on 18 April 1964, a performance later issued on Smithsonian Folkways’ Live Duet Recordings 1963–1980.
Monroe’s studio recording was made at Bradley’s Barn in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, on 3 December 1970, in a session produced by Walter Haynes. Three fiddlers played on it — Kenny Baker, Red Hayes and Gordon Terry — with James Monroe on guitar and Bobby Thompson on banjo. Decca released it on 15 May 1972 as Decca 32966, backed with “My Old Kentucky and You.” He recorded it again on 3 March 1992 in Nashville, with Tom Ewing on guitar, Dana Cupp on banjo, Jimmy Campbell on fiddle and Clarence ‘Tater’ Tate on bass; that version appears on the Homespun DVD The Mandolin of Bill Monroe (issued 2004).
Kenny Baker, Monroe’s fiddler on the 1970 session, included it on Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe (County, 1976). In 1996 the Bluegrass Album Band recorded it for Bluegrass Instrumentals, Volume 6 (Rounder) at Music Row Audio in Nashville, with Tony Rice on guitar, J.D. Crowe on banjo, Doyle Lawson on mandolin, Bobby Hicks and Vassar Clements on fiddles, Jerry Douglas on dobro and Todd Phillips on bass. Billy Strings and Don Julin recorded it on Fiddle Tune X (2014), and Bluegrass Discography lists dozens of other releases that include it.
