Bill Monroe wrote “Kentucky Waltz” and first recorded it on 13 February 1945 at the WBBM radio studios in Chicago, at a Columbia session with his Blue Grass Boys. Monroe sang lead and played mandolin, with Tex Willis on guitar, Chubby Wise on fiddle, David “Stringbean” Akeman on banjo, Howard “Cedric Rainwater” Watts on bass and Sally Ann Forrester on accordion; Curley Bradshaw may have played a second guitar. Columbia issued the side in January 1946 as the flip of “Rocky Road Blues” (Columbia 36907). It climbed to number three on Billboard’s country chart, the best placing Monroe ever had there.
The lyric looks back on a love that is over. The singer remembers waltzing one night in Kentucky beneath a harvest moon, when he was “the boy that was lucky,” until it all ended too soon. Now he sits alone in the moonlight, sees her smiling face, and longs once more for her embrace in that Kentucky waltz.
The song had its biggest year in 1951. Eddy Arnold’s recording reached number one on Billboard’s country chart that May and held the top spot for several weeks, and Rosemary Clooney’s version went to number 24 on the Cash Box pop chart. Monroe recut the song for Decca on 5 March 1951 at Castle Studio in the Tulane Hotel, Nashville, this time with Grady Martin on electric guitar, Jimmy Selph on guitar, Tommy Jackson on fiddle, Ernie Newton on bass and Farris Coursey on drums. Decca released that version in April 1951 (Decca 46314), backed with “Prisoner’s Song.”
Monroe came back to it again with Emmylou Harris on Bill Monroe and Friends, and Doc Watson and David Grisman recorded it for Doc & Dawg. Other recordings include those by Cowboy Copas, Elton Britt, Hank Locklin, Slim Whitman, Merle Travis and Joe Maphis, the Osborne Brothers and Kenny Baker.
