Who recorded it first
Green, Green Grass of Home
Not a Tom Jones original — Johnny Darrell cut it first, in 1965
Outside Nashville, “Green, Green Grass of Home” is simply a Tom Jones record — his Decca single spent seven weeks at No. 1 in Britain from 1 December 1966 and has sold well over a million copies there. It was nowhere near the first recording. The song was written in the mid-1960s by Claude “Curly” Putman Jr., and Johnny Darrell ↗ recorded it first, in 1965, as his debut single for United Artists Records (UA-869). Darrell’s record did not chart at all; Porter Wagoner’s RCA Victor version made No. 4 country that same year, Bobby Bare and Jerry Lee Lewis also cut it in 1965 and Charley Pride put it on his debut album in September 1966 — and Jones was handed the Lewis album in a New York record shop.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Issued in 1965 as Johnny Darrell’s debut single on United Artists Records, catalogue UA-869, backed with “Deepening Snow” and produced by Kelso Herston. Sources differ on the month: Wikipedia’s single infobox gives May 1965, while MusicBrainz dates the United Artists 45 to July 1965. Both place it in 1965, and every source consulted agrees Darrell’s was the first recording made.
Charted Did not chart. Johnny Darrell’s singles discography shows no placing for it on the US country chart, the US pop chart or the Canadian country chart. The song’s first chart success came with Porter Wagoner’s RCA Victor version, recorded on 7 June 1965 and released that July, which reached No. 4 on the country chart.
How we checked it
Wikipedia’s article on the song states that it was written by Claude “Curly” Putman Jr. and first recorded by Johnny Darrell as his debut single in 1965, and that Tom Jones learned it from Jerry Lee Lewis’s version — Green, Green Grass of Home ↗. Its single infobox supplies the United Artists credit, the producer Kelso Herston and the B-side.
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, which inducted Putman in 1976, says in its own biography of him that Darrell was “the first to cut that song” and that Wagoner’s 1965 version was the first hit — Curly Putman, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame ↗. This is the key non-Wikipedia confirmation. The same biography bears on the composition year: it has Putman moving to Nashville in 1964 to plug songs for Tree and writing this one “a year later”, which puts it in 1965, where Wikidata also places it; Songfacts ↗ and Wikipedia’s biography of Putman say 1964. We have recorded both rather than picking one. Its catalogue for the song also lists Bobby Bare (1965) and Charley Pride (1966) alongside Darrell, Wagoner and Lewis.
MusicBrainz carries a distinct 2:35 Darrell recording tied to the United Artists 45 UA-869 backed with “Deepening Snow”, which matches the 2:35 length given in Wikipedia’s single infobox — recording d576c908 ↗. MusicBrainz dates that release to July 1965 rather than Wikipedia’s May 1965; we have recorded both rather than picking one.
An independent music-press account agrees that the initial recording was Darrell’s and the first hit version Wagoner’s — uDiscover Music ↗.
Wikidata’s entry for the song carries the same finding in its own English description — “original song written and composed by Curly Putman; originally recorded by Johnny Darrell and released in 1965” — and gives 1965 as the publication date: Wikidata Q1512100 ↗. No source we found names any recording earlier than Darrell’s.
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Fact-check
What people get wrong
“Green, Green Grass of Home” is so completely fused to Tom Jones’s 1966 chart-topper that the American records that came first — Johnny Darrell, Porter Wagoner, Bobby Bare and Jerry Lee Lewis in 1965, Charley Pride in September 1966, all of them listed in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame’s catalogue for the song — have dropped out of the story entirely, including the one that was genuinely first.
Tom Jones
His Decca single (F 22511), released 28 October 1966 and produced by Peter Sullivan, reached No. 1 in the UK on 1 December and held for seven weeks, and reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is the definitive popular version, but it is at least the fifth commercially released recording of the song, not the first.
Johnny Darrell
Darrell recorded it for United Artists Records as his debut single (UA-869), produced by Kelso Herston and backed with “Deepening Snow”. It did not chart on the US country, US pop or Canadian country charts.
Porter Wagoner
Wagoner recorded his version at RCA Studio B in Nashville on 7 June 1965 with producer Bob Ferguson; the RCA Victor single, released that July, reached No. 4 on the country chart. This is the version Nashville tends to remember as the original — and it is not.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Lewis opened his Smash album Country Songs for City Folks with it. Jones was handed that album at Colony Records in New York and learned the song from it, which is why the chain back to Darrell is invisible outside country music.
Wikipedia’s own Curly Putman biography
The songwriter’s Wikipedia article dates the song to 1964 and describes it as sung by Porter Wagoner, then lists Johnny Darrell among the artists who covered it — putting the first recording in the covers column.
Claude “Curly” Putman Jr.
Putman wrote the song at the Tree office in Nashville, where he worked as a song plugger. The year is not settled: the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame places the writing a year after his 1964 move to Nashville, and Wikidata dates the song 1965, while Songfacts and Wikipedia’s biography of Putman say 1964. Songfacts traces its setting to the film The Asphalt Jungle.
Curly Putman wrote it, Johnny Darrell recorded it first, Porter Wagoner made it a hit and Tom Jones made it famous — in that order.
Context
Why the famous version is the one the world knows
The song did not have to wait to be discovered — it had to wait for a record that reached outside country radio. Johnny Darrell’s United Artists single, the first recording of it, made no showing on the US country chart, the pop chart or the Canadian country chart. The same year Porter Wagoner cut it at RCA Studio B and took it to No. 4 country, and Jerry Lee Lewis opened his Smash album Country Songs for City Folks with it. Bobby Bare cut it in 1965 as well, and Charley Pride put it on his debut album in September 1966. By the time anyone outside Nashville heard the song at all, five American records of it had been released.
What Tom Jones and his team did in 1966 was change the audience. Les Reed’s arrangement moved it off the country template, Peter Sullivan produced it for Decca, and it arrived in Britain as a Christmas single in a market where the American country chart was effectively invisible. Nothing about that chain gave Darrell’s record a way to survive in memory: it had no chart placing to leave a trace, and the hit that eclipsed it was itself third-hand. The forgetting runs deeper than the general public, too — Wikipedia’s own biography of the songwriter credits Porter Wagoner with the original and lists Johnny Darrell among the artists who covered it.
The chronology, version by version
- 1964 or 1965 — Curly Putman, working as a song plugger for Tree in Nashville, writes the song. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame puts it a year after his 1964 arrival and Wikidata dates it 1965; Songfacts and Wikipedia’s Putman biography say 1964. Songfacts traces its setting to the film The Asphalt Jungle.
- 1965 — Johnny Darrell makes the first recording, issued as his debut single on United Artists Records (UA-869), backed with “Deepening Snow” and produced by Kelso Herston. It does not chart. Wikipedia’s single infobox dates the release to May 1965; MusicBrainz dates the 45 to July 1965.
- 7 June 1965 — Porter Wagoner records his version at RCA Studio B in Nashville with producer Bob Ferguson.
- July 1965 — Wagoner’s RCA Victor single is released and reaches No. 4 on the country chart, giving the song its first hit.
- 1965 — Jerry Lee Lewis opens his Smash album Country Songs for City Folks, produced by Shelby Singleton, with the song. Bobby Bare also records it this year.
- 1965 — Tom Jones, in New York for The Ed Sullivan Show, calls at Colony Records, asks for anything new by Jerry Lee Lewis, and is handed the country album.
- September 1966 — Charley Pride includes the song on his debut RCA Victor album Country Charley Pride, a month before the Jones single.
- 28 October 1966 — Jones’s Decca single (F 22511) is released, produced by Peter Sullivan and arranged by Les Reed.
- 1 December 1966 — the Jones version reaches No. 1 in the UK and holds for seven weeks; it also tops the Irish chart and reaches No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
By the time Jones found the song in a New York record shop, four Americans had already recorded it.