"Faded Love" was written by Bob Wills, along with his father John and brother Billy Jack, in 1950. Although it has since become a classic of Western swing, it only did moderately well in its initial release -- reaching number eight on the C&W chart, and never crossing over. Cover versions have charted over the years, notably by Patsy Cline (not released until after she died in a plane crash), Jackie DeShannon, and Tompall & The Glazer Brothers. Willie Nelson's duet with Ray Price, with Crystal Gayle singing harmony on the chorus, reached number three on the Hot 100.
John Wills lifted the melody from a much older song, "Darling Nellie Gray," written in 1856 by Benjamin Hanby (it is a fascinating story, so don't miss it at the bottom of this post).
An instrumental with four fiddles:
Bob Wills's original release (audio only):
Patsy Cline; overproduced, in my opinion, but still wonderful (audio only):
Interesting instrumental by Merle Haggard, with strains (I think) of "San Antonio Rose"
Of course, Willie Nelson & Ray Price with Crystal Gayle (audio only):
I like Reina del Cid, although this is not her best work (without Toni Lindgren):
"Darling Nellie Gray," like "My Old Kentucky Home," is a song about the evils of slavery, written by a white man in the years before the Civil War. Also like Stephen Foster's more famous song, it depicts slavery as a more benign institution in Kentucky, which only becomes intolerable by the separation of a family, or in this case sweethearts, by a sale into the deep South. The lyrics are even more explicit than "My Old Kentucky Home:"
One night I went to see her, but "She's gone!" the neighbors say.
The white man bound her with his chain;
They have taken her to Georgia for to wear her life away,
As she toils in the cotton and the cane.
A severely abridged version was recorded in 1937 by Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers.
It is likely that it was the 1937 rendition that inspired John Wills, rather than the antebellum sheet music, which would have sounded more like this:
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