"Lovesick Blues" is a Tin Pan Alley song, composed by Cliff Friend, with lyrics by Irving Mills.

The recordings by Griffin and Miller inspired Hank Williams to perform the song during his first appearances on the Louisiana Hayride radio show in 1948.

Receiving an enthusiastic reception from the audience, Williams decided to record his own version despite initial push back from his producer Fred Rose (a former 1920s Tin Pan Alley songwriter) and his band.

Accompanied by Walter Rothrock on the piano, Miller cut four sides for the label, including "Lovesick Blues".

Though it was his final session for Decca Records, he was eventually inducted by the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, in recognition of songs like "The Last Letter" and "The Lovesick Blues."

His recording on September 25, 1939[14] was the first "Hillbilly" version (equivalent to today's "Country music") of the latter, and it was his arrangement that Hank Williams later "imitated and immortalized", in December 1948.

[15] Hank Williams, who heard both the Miller and Griffin versions,[3] started performing the song on the Louisiana Hayride shortly after joining in August 1948.

[21] With little time left, Byrd and Turner replicated the musical arrangement they previously used on an Ernest Tubb session for a cover of Jimmie Rodgers' "Waiting for a Train".

In the episode of American Masters about Williams, Drifting Cowboy Don Helms recalls, "When they recorded 'Lovesick Blues,' Fred told Hank, 'That song's out of meter!

Williams combined Griffin's lyrical arrangement with a two-beat honky-tonk track,[22] borrowing the yodeling and beat drops from Miller's recording.

[18] On its February 26, 1949 review, Billboard opined: "Hank's razz-mah-tazz approach and ear-catching yodeling should keep this side spinning".

[19] In March 1949, Wesley Rose requested Williams to send him the records by Griffin and Miller to prove that the song was in the public domain.

In less than three months, with the case still pending, Acuff-Rose Publications, Inc. assigned its March copyright to Mills Music, Inc. on July 29, 1949.

It was re-published on that date as "Lovesick blues; words and music by Irving Mills and Cliff Friend, arr.

The recording lineup consisted of Sonny Curtis providing lead guitar and vocals, Joe Osborn on bass, Jerry Allison on drums, and Glen Hardin on piano.