This was written by Vincent Rose, Al Lewis and Larry Stock for the 1940 Western The Singing Hill before they decided it was good enough to be released commercially. The song was used in the movie, where it was heard for the first time performed by Gene Autry.
Larry Stock, who wrote the lyrics, recalled that
One important publisher turned down ‘Blueberry Hill’ because he claimed blueberries don’t grow on hills. I assured him I had picked them on hills as a boy, but nothing doing. So Chappell And Company bought the song and another hit was born.
Fats Domino, who knew the song through Louis Armstrong’s 1949 version, recorded this at Master Recorders in Los Angeles at a session in which he ran out of material to tape.
Domino insisted on recording the song over the vehement objections of producer-arranger Dave Bartholomew, who felt the song been done too many times already. Domino came up with the definitive version though, featuring his famous piano triplets and sly Cajun accent. The band couldn’t get a full take of this song they were happy with, so the engineer, Bunny Robyn pieced together the final version from many fragmentary takes.
Many artists recorded this before Domino, mostly orchestras. In 1940, it was a #2 US hit for Glenn Miller.
That same year, Russ Morgan, Gene Krupa and Kay Kyser all recorded it with their orchestras. Louis Armstrong did the song with Gordon Jenkins and his orchestra in 1949; this version was re-released in 1956, going to #29 in America. Other artists to cover the song include Elvis Presley (on his 1957 album Loving You), The Beach Boys, Andy Williams, Kiki, Cliff Richard, Bruce Cockburn.
An international hit in 1956 for Fats Domino and has become a rock and roll standard. It reached #2 for three weeks on the Billboard Top 40 charts, becoming his biggest pop hit, and spent eight non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the R&B Best Sellers chart. The version by Fats Domino was also ranked #82 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song was Domino’s greatest hit and remains the song most associated with him.
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