James King made the first recording of “Crazy Heart,” on his 1995 Rounder album Lonesome and Then Some (Rounder CD 0350), where it is the opening track. The credits on the album list Billy Smith and Sharon Higgins as its writers. King sang lead with Dudley Connell on tenor, and the session at Big Mo Recording Studio in Kensington, Maryland, with Ken Irwin producing, used Connell on guitar, Tom Adams on banjo, Mike Compton on mandolin, Tim Smith on fiddle and Marshall Wilborn on bass.
The Lonesome River Band recorded it the next year for One Step Forward (Sugar Hill SHCD 3848, 1996), with Kenny Smith on guitar, Sammy Shelor on banjo, Don Rigsby on mandolin and Ronnie Bowman on bass, and Randy Howard on fiddle and Jerry Douglas on dobro as guests. Billy and Terry Smith included it on Voices of the Mountain (Red Clay, 1999), and Allen Amburgey and Kentucky Mountain Grass on their 2000 album.
The lyric is a complaint about a changeable lover. She is like a wild west wind, uncertain, changing “like the weather every day”; one night they are in love and the next he is hurting. The singer wishes he did not love her and could turn around and walk away, says he has only half a mind to leave, and asks for a love he can count on, since he cannot hold her to the promises she has made.
