The song credits tell us that Tender Feeling was written by Florence Kaye (January 19, 1919 - May 12, 2006), Bernie Baum (October 13, 1929 – August 28, 1993) and Bill Giant (aka Harvey Zimmerman aka Billy Merman, March 2, 1930 – November 26, 1987). A trio that wrote many more songs for mainly Elvis' movies. The biggest Elvis hit they wrote together however, was (You're the) Devil In Disguise. Tender Feeling was written for Elvis' movie Kissin' Cousins.
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No matter the credits, this song already existed. Tender Feeling was heavily based on the traditional American folk song of uncertain origin, dating at least to the early 19th century and was known as Oh Shenandoah (also called simply "Shenandoah" or "Across the Wide Missouri"). The song appears to have originated with Canadian and American voyageurs or fur traders traveling down the Missouri River in canoes, and has developed several different sets of lyrics. Some lyrics refer to the Native American chief "Shenandoah" (Oskanondonha) and a canoe-going trader who wants to marry his daughter. By the mid 1800s versions of the song had become a sea shanty heard or sung by sailors in various parts of the world.
Here we hear an early version (recorded in London on May 24, 1935) as sung by actor, singer and activist Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976).
Shenandoah
Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, I'm bound to go
'Cross the wide Missouri
Shenandoah, I took a notion
Away, you rolling river
To sail across the stormy ocean
Away, I'm bound to go
'Cross the wide Missouri
'Tis seven long years since last I see thee
Away, you rolling river
'Tis seven long years since last I see thee
Away, I'm bound to go
'Cross the wide Missouri
Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, I'm bound to go
'Cross the wide Missouri
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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Shenandoah#RecordingsThe song had become popular as a sea chanty with seafaring sailors by the mid 1800s. A version of the song called "Shanadore" was mentioned in Capt. Robert Chamblet Adams' article "Sailors' Songs" in the April 1876 issue of The New Dominion Monthly. He also included it in his 1879 book On Board the "Rocket". "Shanadore" was later printed as part of William L. Alden's article "Sailor Songs" in the July 1882 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, and in the 1892 book Songs that Never Die. Alfred Mason Williams' 1895 Studies in Folk-song and Popular Poetry called it a "good specimen of a bowline chant".
In a letter to the UK newspaper The Times, a former sailor who had worked aboard clipper ships carrying wool between Britain and Australia in the 1880s suggested the song had originated as a black American spiritual which developed into a work song:
This chantey is obviously of American origin.... "Shenandoah" was more a wool and cotton chantey than a capstan chantey. I have many times heard it sung down the hold on the wool screws by the Sydney waterside workers ... and many were full-blood negroes, who undoubtedly brought these chanteys off the cotton ships.... With regard to the words, these vary according to the taste of the chantey man in the first and third line of each verse, there being no effort called for on these two lines, but the second and fourth lines were always the same, these being the rhythm lines on which the weight was used. When I was in the wool trade in the eighties, in both The Tweed and Cutty Sark this chantey was daily used on the wool screws.
Modern usage
The song is popular in local organizations such as Shenandoah University, Washington and Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute.
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In 2006 "Shenandoah" was proposed as the "interim state song" for Virginia, with updated lyrics.[15] The proposal was contentious because the standard folksong refers to the Missouri River and never specifically mentions Virginia and, in many versions of the song, the name "Shenandoah" refers to an Indian chief, not the Shenandoah Valley or Shenandoah River which lie almost entirely in Virginia. In 2015, "Our Great Virginia", which uses the melody of "Shenandoah" was designated by the Virginia Legislature as the official traditional state song of Virginia.
It features in the soundtrack of the 1965 movie, Shenandoah, starring Jimmy Stewart, and is also heard as a part of a medley in the 1962 film How the West Was Won.
Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
Various arrangements by Percy Grainger have been recorded by John Shirley-Quirk and other classically-trained singers. "A song of the waters: variations on the folksong Shenandoah" is a classical composition by James Cohn.
There are not many other versions of Tender Feeling. This is one:
Sue Moreno, on the 2012 album "All I Can Do Is Dream Of You"
https://secondhandsongs.com/performance/105479/versions
Many are of Shenandoah however. Just to name a few:
Bobby Bare on Darker Than Night (Plowboy Records, 2012)
Harry Belafonte on a 1952 single and on Belafonte at Carnegie Hall (RCA Records, 1959)
David Berkeley on Some Kind of Cure (2011)
Glen Campbell on The Artistry of Glen Campbell (Capitol, 1972) and The Essential Glen Campbell Volume One (Capitol CDP-33288, 1994)
Jerry Reed on A Good Woman's Love (RCA, 1974)
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Celtic Woman on Celtic Woman: A New Journey (Manhattan, 2007)
Bing Crosby on How the West Was Won (RCA Records, 1959)
Bob Dylan on Down in the Groove (1988)
Tennessee Ernie Ford on Shenandoah (Red Door Productions, 1959) and The Folk Album (Capitol, 1971)
Van Morrison with The Chieftains on Long Journey Home (RCA, 1998)
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Judy Garland on That Old Feeling - Classic Ballads from the Judy Garland Show (Savoy Jazz label, 2005)
The Kingston Trio as "Across the Wide Missouri" on Here We Go Again! (Capitol, 1959)
Pete Seeger on American Favorite Ballads, Volume 1 (Smithsonian Folkways, 2002)
Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (Columbia, 2006)
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Jo Stafford on American Folk Songs (Corinthian, 1950)
The Statler Brothers on Big Country Hits (Columbia, 1967)
Tom Waits with Keith Richards on Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys (Anti-, 2013).[19]
SOURCES
https://secondhandsongs.com/artist/15760
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Kaye
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Baum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Giant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Shenandoah#Recordings
http://davidneale.eu/elvis/originals/list8.html#S1483
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson
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"Well sir,to be honest with you,we just stumbled upon it." - 1954
. Bye for now 
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. Bye for now 
. Bye for now 
