June Moon: Sail Along Silv’ry Moon

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Well, well. I told someone that this song would not be on the list. Then I listened to it, and decided it should be on the list. As a result, and I hope you’re sitting down for this one, no less than Don Henley got kicked OFF the list in favor of this one! (The Henley song I was going to use was “Talking to the Moon.”) So thanks, Pony, for saying you’d never heard this…you changed an entire countdown! Here we go. Sail Along Silv’ry Moon - Billy Vaughn You don’t see those “various artist” records anymore, and that’s a shame. I learned a LOT of great songs from those albums. (Those of you who grew up in the K-Tel days know what I mean. ) We had a collection of 50s songs on a three-record set when I was little. This song was on it. Whenever it would play, my mom would sing along with it. As this is an instrumental, I thought she was just making things up for it. Oh, no. It turns out that this song dates to 1937. It had numerous vocal recordings (including one by Bing Crosby that darn near put me to sleep ). Then along came Billy Vaughn and the rock era. Vaughn, a multi-instrumentalist (he taught himself to play mandolin while recovering from the measles when he was a toddler!), realized that the Crosby arrangement wouldn’t fly in the Elvis era, so he used a more upbeat tempo, along the lines of what Gene Autry used (yes, that Gene Autry, the one who owned the California Angels ), for the instrumental. Hey, it worked! An old song made the top five in the US and #1 in other parts of the world. And it ensured that kids like me grew up only knowing the song as an instrumental. Sail Along Silv’ry Moon Written by Harry Tobias and Percy Wenrich Recorded by Billy Vaughn From Sail Along Silv’ry Moon, 1957 In the glow of your light: