Ten Great Recordings of Blue Moon

Blue Moon blogging,

from Benny Goodman (1935)

to Julie London (1961)

to She Keeps Bees (2012),

essay 2 of 2

In my first essay on “Blue Moon,” I traced the strange evolution of the story within the song from its original Rodgers and Hart composition through the Elvis Presley dismantling and finally to the Cowboy Junkies rewrite.  I’m including all three highlighted versions here, too, because they really are favorites of mine.

Some obvious versions are missing from this selection simply because they aren’t my favorites.  So you won’t find Mel Torme’s jazzy hit from 1949, The Marcels’ doo-wop classic from 1961, Bobby Vinton’s teen-dream version (best utilized as the American Werewolf in London centerpiece), or The Mavericks smooth country reupholstering of the Elvis interpretation.  All were big hits and remain easily accessible, via YouTube and other channels.

Finally, I’ve left off some dazzling instrumental jazz interpretations largely because I’ve decided to maintain a focus on the interpretation of Lorenz Hart’s lyrics.

The order is chronological, with two bonus tracks at the end:

Benny Goodman in 1935:  There was a lot of “Blue Moon” activity in the mid-1930s, with different versions battling for chart supremacy.  Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra sold best, with Benny Goodman’s arrangement a close second.  I’ll take Goodman for the unaffected vocal by Helen Ward and the closing trombone solo by Jack Lacey.

Billie Holiday in 1952:  Lady Day deserved the love she sang about so playfully here.  It’s an unusually ironic take on the song, with Holiday gently kidding the very notion of love at first sight.  But she’ll enjoy the moment just fine while it lasts.

Jo Stafford in 1952:  Stafford is such a justifiably self-confident singer that she loses a little of the vulnerability inherent in the lyric.  Nevertheless, this is pitch-perfect and a marvel of subtle phrasing.  Lou McGarity’s trombone perfectly complements Stafford’s high style.

Elvis Presley in 1954:  As I posted in the first essay, I love the still-teenage Elvis hitting those spooky high notes.  His wordless improvisation fundamentally changes the song, and brilliantly so.

Ella Fitzgerald in 1956:  In the 1950s, Ella Fitzgerald set about reinterpreting the great pop standards and that included the American songbook of Rodgers and Hart.  She plays it absolutely straight, delivering what may be the most romantic interpretation of them all.

Julie London in 1961:  London delivers a sly understated and sexy “Blue Moon,” as she knowingly trades off with a slinky guitar riff.  It’s pure 60s and irresistible.

Bobby Bland in 1962:  Straying far afield from his traditional swaggering blues attacks, Bobby Bland and his ace arranger Joe Scott cleverly adapted “Blue Moon” for a funky horns-dominated party atmosphere.

Cowboy Junkies in 1987:  While “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)” is technically a new song—a wrap-around elaboration of the Presley “Blue Moon”—I’m choosing to include it here as an authentic extension of the original.  I stand by my contention, asserted in the previous essay, that the new lyric emerges naturally from the Rodgers’ melody.

My Morning Jacket in 2002:  I wasn’t expecting this!  Lead singer Jim James takes the Elvis falsetto addition and completely re-imagines it—a new melodic twist that works with the original bridge and closing verse that Elvis had abandoned.  Very cool.

YouTube video of “Blue Moon” by She Keeps Bees.
She Keeps Bees website, with link to the single.

She Keeps Bees in 2012:  There’s no nostalgia in Jessica Larrabee’s vocal, just a smart, hoarse, and spare late-night exploration of love in the 21st century.  “Blue Moon” still matters.

AND TWO (2) BONUS TRACKS!!!

Shirley Ross in 1934:  From Manhattan Melodrama (1934), Shirley Ross sings the song “The Bad In Every Man,” Lorenz Hart’s second attempt at putting lyrics to Richard Rodgers’ “Blue Moon” melody.  His fourth try would finally yield the standard “Blue Moon.”

Harpo Marx in 1939:  Although Groucho might urge you to move on (“I’ve got to stay here, but there’s no reason why you folks shouldn’t go out into the lobby until this thing blows over”), here’s Harpo Marx playing “Blue Moon” on his harp in At the Circus (1939).

© 2014 Lee Price

Blue Moon, You Saw Me Standing Alone

Blue Moon blogging,

from Rogers and Hart (1934)

to Elvis (1954)

to the Cowboy Junkies (1987),

essay 1 of 2

Let’s consider the song “Blue Moon” as a work in progress:

Version 1:  Rodgers and Hart in 1934

Eighty years ago, composer Richard Rodgers nailed the melody of “Blue Moon” first time out.  He tossed it off, genius-style.

Richard Rodgers, seated, and Lorenz Hart.
From Wikimedia Commons.

Lorenz Hart, a genius in a different vein, struggled with lyrics to fit the tune.  His first three efforts were clever but not magical.  The whole package didn’t click.  On his fourth try, Hart uncharacteristically delivered a nearly straight love song.  He couldn’t resist some shades of irony from entering—it was his natural default—but the new words described a formulaic situation (boy meets girl, love-at-first-sight) in an openly sentimental way.

This was the version of “Blue Moon” that became a beloved standard.  The song opens from the perspective of a lonely guy, with the initial emphasis falling on the “blue,” or sad, nature of the moon.  But blue moon riffs on the idea of a rare moment as well, and the classic once-in-a-lifetime moment occurs on the song’s bridge:

And then there suddenly appeared before me,

The only one my arms will ever hold

I heard somebody whisper, “Please adore me.”

And when I looked,

The moon had turned to gold.

The last verse revels in the new-found prospect of eternal love:

Blue moon,

Now I’m no longer alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own.

That’s about as happy-ever-after as things get in a song.

While this version of “Blue Moon” became hugely popular, I like to think that there has always been a disconnect between music and lyrics.  Rodgers’ original melody hinted at depths that Hart’s lyrics evaded.

Version 2: Elvis Presley in 1954

Memphis, Tennessee:  In the aftermath of their regionally popular recording of “That’s All Right,” a 19-year-old kid named Elvis Presley, producer Sam Phillips of Sun Records, and guitarist Scotty Moore were poking and prodding “Blue Moon,” trying to find an Elvis song in the old standby.  Elvis, Scotty, and bassist Bill Black played “Blue Moon” late into the night and quit unsatisfied.  The recordings went into storage.

Elvis in 1956.

A month later in August 1954, they tried again.  But Phillips remained unenthusiastic about the approach and declined to release the song.  When the major label RCA signed Elvis 18 months later, they took the Sun recordings, too.  Culled from the August 1954 session, “Blue Moon” was released in 1956 on Elvis’ first RCA album, the classic Elvis Presley. 

Elvis’ version never gets past the first half of the Rodgers and Hart song.  He sings the first two verses and then repeats them.  This means he never gets to the bridge or the third verse, where the lovers meet.  Without the love-at-first-sight climax, all that’s left is the yearning for love.  Happiness is replaced by melancholia.

And melancholia is Presley’s gift to the Rodgers and Hart song, with Elvis punctuating the melody with a falsetto wail that I think is heartbreaking but my daughter finds creepy.  In either case, it represents a radical reinterpretation that locates a sadness in the Rodgers tune that never found voice in Hart’s lyrics.

Version 3:  The Cowboy Junkies in 1987

In 1987, a Canadian indie rock band called the Cowboy Junkies refashioned the stripped-down Elvis version of “Blue Moon,” adding a framing story to explain the sorrow.  They called it “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)” and it can be found on their 1988 album The Trinity Sessions.

Margo Timmins, lead singer of the
Cowboy Junkies.

The Elvis “Blue Moon” was an odd hybrid of country and blues, taking things in a different direction than the rockabilly of the early Elvis hits.  This was an idiom that the Cowboy Junkies felt comfortable exploring.  From the outset, their music was low-key, thoughtful, and unabashedly pessimistic.  For their second album, they rented the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto for a day, gathered around a single microphone and played their music.

The implied loss in the Elvis version finally becomes explicit in “Blue Moon Revisited.”  Elvis’ eerie falsetto wailing becomes linked to the death of a lover:

You see I was afraid

To let my baby stray

I kept him too tightly by my side

And then one sad day he went away and he died.

Reference Sources

Rodgers and Hart by Samuel Marx and Jan Clayton
Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick

© 2014 Lee Price