Number 19 - Blue Moon Of Kentucky

Beatles Involved: 

Paul, George and Ringo

Listenability: 2.5 out of 5

Playing unrehearsed with two acoustic guitars and brushes Paul, George and Ringo played a number of songs from the early rock and roll days at George's Friar Park in June 1994. Only three of these songs have been released with Blue Moon Of Kentucky being the first to be made public when it was shown on Good Morning America in December 1996. The song was originally a pre-rock and roll waltz by Bill Monroe. It was later covered by Elvis Presley. George doesn't seem overly interested, but at least joins in with a bit of the singing. Otherwise it's fairly unremarkable. No lead guitar, no bass guitar, no vocal harmonies and no John coming back from the dead via a dodgy cassette recording.

What They Said About It

Paul:

Well couldn't we do 'Blue Moon Of Kentucky'? 

Paul speaking to George. Taken from: The Beatles Anthology DVD. 

George: 

Just a shorter version. 

George giving his input as to how the song should be played. Taken from: The Beatles Anthology DVD. 

Ringo:

It was just two acoustic guitars and me on brushes. Taken from The Times (UK). Also quoted in Badman's The Beatles Diary Volume 2 p.521

 Jeff Lynne:

It was just like a time-warp kind of thing. We played some old rock-and-roll stuff, a couple of Chuck Berry's, even I Saw Her Standing There.

Bob Smeaton (The Beatles Anthology director):

The more we include of the three guys together, the more we realise that John isn't there. In years to come people might get the chance to see that footage of the three of them playing together at George's place. Knowing the way Apple works, it'll come out eventually, in some shape or form. There's a whole load of that stuff, we were there for a full day and the Beatles started playing songs like Thinking Of Linking and Ain't She Sweet. A little bit of this film was used when George sang Dehra Dune. They did a whole load of rock'n'roll songs. And we shot a load of stuff at Abbey Road, with the three guys and George Martin, which was fantastic. For the Beatles fan, it's priceless, I'm sure that somewhere down the line, that stuff will come out.

Other Bits And Pieces:

Blue Moon Of Kentucky seems to have been a favourite of Paul's. According to author Gary McGee, it was played a number of times on the Wings 1972 Great Britain Tour. The song also featured on his 1991 album Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) and on Paul's radio program Oobu Joobu broadcast on June 5th 1995.

Here's the Elvis version if you want to compare.