Who released it first
Tennessee Waltz
Not a Patti Page original — a 1948 Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys single on RCA Victor
Patti Page’s 1950 record is so total a possession of this song that most people assume she introduced it. She did not. “Tennessee Waltz” was written in 1946 by bandleader Pee Wee King and his singer Redd Stewart, and King’s Golden West Cowboys cut it on 2 December 1947 at RCA Victor’s Chicago studio; RCA Victor issued it as single 20-2680 on 26 January 1948 — the first released recording — and it reached No. 3 country. The earliest recording is older still, and it is not King’s: Cowboy Copas, a former Golden West Cowboy, taped the song for King Records in Cincinnati in April 1947, but the label sat on it until March 1948. Page’s Mercury version arrived in November 1950 and spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the pop chart — and both country records have been standing in its shadow ever since.
The record
Who released it first
Released Recorded 2 December 1947 at RCA Victor Studio A in Chicago and issued as a 78 rpm single, RCA Victor 20-2680, on 26 January 1948, credited to Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys. That is the first released recording of the song — but not the first one made: Cowboy Copas had cut it for King Records in April 1947, and King held the master back until March 1948.
Charted Reached No. 3 on the Billboard country chart in 1948, selling roughly 300,000 copies.
Hear the 1948 RCA Victor 78 itself — Victor 20-2680 by Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys, the first released recording, not the Patti Page version archive.org · Internet Archive item “75. Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys – Tennessee Waltz”, a transfer of the shellac disc, with the RCA Victor catalogue number 20-2680 given on the item pageFollowing the record
The 1948 single is catalogued as Victor 20-2680, and a transfer of the shellac itself is preserved at the Internet Archive ↗.
Wikipedia’s article on the song ↗ gives the 2 December 1947 session, the 26 January 1948 release, and the No. 3 country placing.
Released first is not the same as recorded first, and on this song they are different acts. The same Wikipedia entry ↗ says only that Cowboy Copas’s version was released by King Records (King 696) in March 1948, reaching No. 6 country. The session itself was far earlier: Honking Duck ↗ dates the King 696A master (matrix K2440) to 1 April 1947, and Praguefrank’s Cowboy Copas discography ↗ places the session at the King Recording Studio on Brewster Avenue, Cincinnati, in April 1947 — eight months before the Golden West Cowboys went into RCA’s Chicago studio.
The composition, registered by Acuff-Rose in February 1948, is credited on MusicBrainz ↗ to Pee Wee King as composer and Redd Stewart as lyricist.
Wikipedia’s “Tennessee Waltz” entry, with the 1947 session, the 1948 release and every major coverKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Right song, wrong beginning
Patti Page’s record is one of the best-selling singles of the twentieth century, which is exactly why it is mistaken for the first one. Here is the order things actually happened in.
Patti Page originated “Tennessee Waltz” with her 1950 Mercury single.
Her version spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the pop chart and had sold 2.3 million copies by May 1951, dwarfing everything that came before it in the mainstream market.
Cowboy Copas, cut at the King Recording Studio in Cincinnati in April 1947 (King 696A, matrix K2440), but not released until March 1948.
Copas, a former Golden West Cowboy, taped the song eight months before its writers did — the discographies of the King sessions date the master to April 1947 — and his record still reached No. 6 country and sold about 80,000 copies once King finally issued it.
Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys, recorded 2 December 1947, released by RCA Victor as 20-2680 on 26 January 1948.
King’s single was the first version the public could buy, two months ahead of the Copas record. It reached No. 3 on the country chart and sold around 300,000 copies — a substantial country hit that never reached the pop audience Page later did.
Pee Wee King (music) and Redd Stewart (lyrics), written in 1946.
The writers made the first released record themselves — King led the band, Stewart was its lead singer — but even they were not the first into a studio with it.
The first released recording is Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys’, cut 2 December 1947 and issued by RCA Victor on 26 January 1948. The earliest recording of all is Cowboy Copas’s, made in April 1947 but held back until March 1948. Patti Page’s version came in November 1950.
Context
Why the cover swallowed the original
The interesting question is not why Patti Page had a hit — it is why a record that had already been a country hit twice could be treated, in 1950, as brand new. The answer is that in the late 1940s the country chart and the pop chart described two more or less sealed markets. Pee Wee King’s RCA Victor single went to No. 3 country in 1948 and Cowboy Copas’s King Records version — recorded eight months before King’s but held back until March 1948 — followed it to No. 6, but neither crossed into the pop audience that bought Mercury singles.
The bridge was accidental. Billboard reviewer Jerry Wexler — years before Atlantic Records made him famous — heard an R&B version by Erskine Hawkins in October 1950 and passed the song to Page’s manager Jack Rael. Page cut it fast, without a proper arrangement, as the B-side of a Christmas novelty. The novelty is forgotten; the flip side spent nine weeks at No. 1 and sold in the millions. When a record outsells its predecessors by that margin, the public files it as the beginning of the story.
The chronology, step by step
- 1946 — Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart write “Tennessee Waltz,” prompted by Bill Monroe’s “Kentucky Waltz.”
- April 1947 — Cowboy Copas, a former Golden West Cowboy, records the song at the King Recording Studio in Cincinnati. It is the earliest known recording, and King Records leaves it on the shelf.
- 2 December 1947 — Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys record it at RCA Victor Studio A in Chicago.
- 26 January 1948 — RCA Victor issues the single as Victor 20-2680, with “Tennessee Waltz” on the B-side of “Rootie Tootie”; it is the first release of the song, reaches No. 3 on the country chart and sells about 300,000 copies.
- 26 February 1948 — the composition is registered by Acuff-Rose Publications of Nashville.
- March 1948 — King Records finally issues the Copas recording as King 696; it reaches No. 6 country.
- October 1950 — Billboard’s Jerry Wexler reviews an Erskine Hawkins R&B version and recommends the song to Patti Page’s manager, Jack Rael.
- November 1950 — Page’s Mercury single (catalogue 5534) appears with “Tennessee Waltz” as the flip of “Boogie Woogie Santa Claus.”
- 30 December 1950 — Page’s version reaches No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart, where it stays for nine weeks; it had sold 2.3 million copies by May 1951.
- 1965 — Tennessee adopts the song as an official state song by Senate Joint Resolution 9.
The song was a country hit twice before America heard it.