Bill Monroe Sings Country Songs is the fourth compilation album by American bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and his band, the Blue Grass Boys. Released by Vocalion Records on March 2, 1964, it features 12 songs recorded between 1950 and 1959 for Decca Records, including three tracks that were previously unreleased. Bill Monroe Sings Country Songs is the second Monroe compilation to cover the 1950s period, following Decca's 1962 release My All Time Country Favorites.
Background In the fall of 1963, Bill Monroe's manager Ralph Rinzler started researching the history of Monroe's recordings with Decca Records, looking for tracks that had not yet been released. Finding "Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia" from 1951, "Used to Be" from 1955 and "When the Phone Rang" from 1959, he arranged for the production of Bill Monroe Sings Country Songs to be released early the next year by Vocalion Records, a subsidiary of Decca which primarily released retrospective material. According to future Blue Grass Boys member and Monroe biographer Tom Ewing, Rinzler "undoubtedly" chose the rest of the songs that would make up the compilation, which he described as "several old favorites". Bill Monroe Sings Country Songs was released by Vocalion on March 2, 1964.
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