The concept of a tune being lined by each Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley might not be too shocking. However for that very same composition to be interpreted by Olivia Newton-John, Petula Clark, UB40, and several other big names in nation music is relatively extra incongruous.
“Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” is immediately related to Willie Nelson, from the model on his landmark 1975 breakthrough Crimson Headed Stranger. However the tune got here from the pen of nation author Fred Rose, the common producer of Hank Williams. Certainly, Hank carried out the tune himself reside in 1951, for the Mom’s Greatest Flour radio present, however even that was 4 years after the primary variations of it.
A late 40s favourite
In 1947, “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” was lower by nation favorite Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys, by western swing household outfit the Sleepy Hole Ranch Gang and by one other nation artist, Elton Britt and his group the Skytoppers. One other nation singer and B-movie western actor, Salty Holmes, recorded it together with his Brown County Boys in 1949, earlier than a spate of variations within the second half of the Fifties.
These included renditions by the Sons of the Pioneers and Ferlin Husky, after which, on August 6, 1959, Gene Vincent recorded his tackle the tune for his Loopy Instances! album, launched in March 1960. Additional variations accrued, by the likes of Hank Locklin and Conway Twitty, earlier than Nelson redefined the tune.
Newton-John had it on her 1976 album Come On Over and Clark launched hers in 1982; Elvis typically favoured the quantity in live performance, and it appeared on his 1976 reside launch From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee. Nelson revisited the tune with Vince Gill for the album Stars & Guitars in 2002. The UB40 model was on 2013’s Getting Over The Storm and there was a 2017 studying by Shovels & Rope that includes John Moreland. Right here’s Gene Vincent’s under-valued studying of a permanent nation gem.
Take heed to uDiscover Music’s official Gene Vincent Greatest Of playlist.
