“Moody River” is a song written by Chase Webster, a country and rockabilly singer who first recorded it himself early in 1961. Within months Pat Boone recorded a version that became a number-one pop hit, and it is Boone’s recording that made the song famous.
The lyric is a tragedy. Its narrator comes to a meeting place by the Moody River to find his sweetheart gone — only a glove and a farewell note left by the muddy water — and learns that, shamed by her own unfaithfulness, she has drowned herself in the river. That dark, melodramatic story gave the gentle melody a haunting undertow.
The song passed from pop and country into the bluegrass and acoustic repertoire. The version heard here is by Doc Watson with his grandson Richard Watson, from their 1999 album “Third Generation Blues.”
