Who recorded it first
Blue Velvet
Not a Bobby Vinton original — Tony Bennett recorded it on 17 July 1951
Bobby Vinton’s Epic single reached No. 1 in September 1963, and David Lynch’s 1986 film fixed the song in the ear as his, but the record was a cover. Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris wrote it, and Tony Bennett was the first to record it, on 17 July 1951 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio with the Percy Faith orchestra. Arthur Prysock recorded a rival Decca version on 23 July 1951 that reached shops ahead of Bennett’s — Decca was advertising Decca 27722 in Billboard on 11 August 1951 and the paper reviewed it on 25 August, while Bennett’s Columbia 39555 was not issued until 21 September. So “the original” splits in two depending on the test applied, and this page applies first-recorded; on first-released the answer is Prysock.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Two rival singles inside one season. Bennett’s reading — cut 17 July 1951 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio with Percy Faith conducting, matrix CO 45194 — was issued on 21 September 1951 as Columbia 39555 (and 4-39555 on 45), with “Solitaire” on the flip. Arthur Prysock’s version, recorded 23 July 1951 at Decca’s Pythian Temple studio with an orchestra directed by Sy Oliver, went out as Decca 27722 backed with “The Morningside of the Mountain”, and Decca was already advertising it in Billboard on 11 August 1951.
Charted Bennett’s Columbia single was a hit but never a chart-topper: No. 16 on Billboard’s ‘Records Most Played by Disc Jockeys’ and No. 18 on both ‘Best Selling Pop Singles’ and ‘Most Played Juke Box Records’. Prysock’s Decca side is not recorded as having charted nationally. Cash Box pooled Bennett’s version with the Prysock, Bill Farrell and Norman Kaye records and ranked them as one line, peaking at No. 12 on the chart dated 1 December 1951.
Hear Tony Bennett’s 1951 Columbia master — the first recording of the song, with the Percy Faith orchestra. www.youtube.com · An auto-generated upload on the ‘Tony Bennett - Topic’ channel, credited ‘Provided to YouTube by Columbia/Legacy’ from The Columbia Singles, Vol. 1, with a ℗ line reading ‘Originally released 1951. All rights reserved by Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment’. Its 3:01 runtime matches the MusicBrainz recording attached to the Columbia 39555 single of 21 September 1951 (3:02) and the length Wikipedia gives for the 1951 issue, so this is the original master and not a later re-cut. No comparable official copy of the 1951 Prysock Decca side could be found — the only uploads are collector channels — so it is not linked. Then compare Bobby Vinton’s 1963 Epic recording — the chart-topping version that displaced Tony Bennett’s in public memory. www.youtube.com · Official “Bobby Vinton - Topic” channel; auto-generated upload reading “Provided to YouTube by Epic” with ℗ 1963 Epic Records. Runtime 167s = 2:47, sitting inside the MusicBrainz cluster for the 1963 master (2:46 on Bobby Vinton’s Greatest Hits, 2:48–2:50 across compilations). The page’s “Released on: 1987-04-07” is a compilation reissue date, not a re-cut — the ℗ 1963 line confirms the original master. Explicitly rejected a separate upload titled “Blue Velvet (Re-Recorded In Stereo)”, which is exactly the wrong-record trap here.How we know
Decca got there first in the trade press: the label was advertising “Blue Velvet” b/w “The Morningside of the Mountain” as Decca 27722 in Billboard of 11 August 1951 ↗.
Billboard’s Advance Record Releases for 18 August 1951 ↗ lists Decca 27722 under both titles. A week later the paper reviewed the record itself: Billboard of 25 August 1951 ↗ carries the notice for Decca 27722, Prysock with the Sy Oliver orchestra. No weekly issue between 30 June and 28 July 1951 lists the title, and no source names a version recorded before Bennett’s 17 July session — which is the basis for the first-recorded call, since the trade paper’s release listings were never exhaustive.
Bennett’s Columbia single turns up later: Billboard’s ‘Billboard Picks’ of 6 October 1951 ↗ tips “Blue Velvet” by Tony Bennett on Columbia 39555 and points readers to Bill Farrell’s MGM 11062 as well.
The single itself is catalogued: MusicBrainz lists Columbia 39555 ↗, dated 21 September 1951, “Blue Velvet” backed with “Solitaire”.
MusicBrainz: every catalogued recording of the Wayne/Morris “Blue Velvet”Know more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Three claims, three different answers
Almost everything people believe about this song is true of a different record from the one they mean. Untangling it takes the dates rather than the memory.
Bobby Vinton
His Epic recording, made 27 May 1963 and released 2 August 1963, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks from 21 September, and David Lynch’s 1986 film welded it permanently to the title. It is a wonderful record. It is also a cover.
Tony Bennett
Cut on 17 July 1951 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio with the Percy Faith orchestra, matrix CO 45194, and issued on 21 September 1951 as Columbia 39555. On the first-recorded test — the one this page applies — Bennett is the original.
Arthur Prysock
Prysock recorded his Decca version on 23 July 1951, after Bennett, but Decca got it out first: the label advertised Decca 27722 in Billboard on 11 August 1951, the paper listed it in Advance Record Releases on 18 August and reviewed it on 25 August — all before Bennett’s Columbia single appeared on 21 September. Wikipedia’s prose ↗ agrees that Prysock’s “evidently was the first version released, in August 1951”, though the same article’s infobox dates the Decca single to September. The trade press supports the prose, not the infobox.
Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris
Neither Vinton, Bennett nor Prysock wrote it. The Decca, Columbia and Epic issues all carry the Wayne–Morris credit, as do the Clovers’, the Statues’ and Lana Del Rey’s later versions.
Bennett got to the microphone first, Prysock got to the shops first, and Vinton got the No. 1 that everybody remembers.
Context
Why the 1963 record swallowed the 1951 ones
In 1951 the song was the property and the record was merely one performance of it. Publishers pushed sheet music, labels raced rival versions into shops within weeks of each other, and Cash Box pooled four separate “Blue Velvet” singles — Bennett’s, Prysock’s, Bill Farrell’s and Norman Kaye’s — into a single chart line that peaked at No. 12. Nobody was hunting for the definitive recording, because the idea barely existed yet.
By 1963 it did. Vinton cut the song almost as an afterthought: filler for Blue on Blue, an album of titles containing the word ‘blue’, reportedly suggested by the publisher Al Gallico, who sent his secretary out with a dollar for the sheet music. Vinton finished it in two takes and thought little of it. Then it went to No. 1, and then David Lynch built a film around it in 1986 — one in which Isabella Rossellini’s character performs the song on screen — and after that there was only one version most listeners could hear.
The full chronology
- 1950 — Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris write the song. (Wikipedia dates the composition to 1950 but places Wayne’s Richmond, Virginia inspiration on a 1951 visit, and does not reconcile the two.)
- 17 July 1951 — Tony Bennett records it at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, New York, with Percy Faith conducting. Matrix CO 45194.
- 23 July 1951 — Arthur Prysock records it for Decca at the Pythian Temple, New York, with an orchestra directed by Sy Oliver.
- 11 August 1951 — Decca advertises Prysock’s Decca 27722 in Billboard. The paper lists it in Advance Record Releases on 18 August and reviews it on 25 August.
- 21 September 1951 — Columbia issues Bennett’s version as 39555, backed with “Solitaire”. Bill Farrell (MGM 11062) and Norman Kaye also put out 1951 versions.
- 16 December 1954 — the Clovers record it for Atlantic; the 1955 single reaches No. 14 on Billboard’s R&B Best Sellers in Stores.
- 1960 — the Statues, a Nashville trio on Liberty, take it to No. 84 — the first version of the song to reach the Hot 100.
- 27 May 1963 — Bobby Vinton records it in Nashville with Burt Bacharach’s orchestra. Epic releases it on 2 August and it is No. 1 by 21 September.
- 1986 — David Lynch names a film after the song and features Vinton’s recording in it.
In 1951 nobody was looking for the definitive version. There wasn’t supposed to be one.