I Went Down to St. James Infirmary

MP3 Monologues 3 & 4 - Charleston Cabin; Mattie Hite

2012-01-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

Since I have, so far, received no objections to these monologues, here are the 3rd and the 4th installments of this oral exploration of (some aspects of) St. James Infirmary.

A few years before "St. James Infirmary" entered the recording studio a song with completely different lyrics but using part of the SJI melody was popular. I wrote about this briefly in an earlier post. To listen to a (two minute) discussion of a precursor to the recorded SJI, "In A Charleston Cabin," click here: Charleston Cabin MP3

In 1930, within a day of each other, the smooth crooner Gene Austin and the blues singer Mattie Hite both recorded SJI. They borrowed the lyrics from Carl Sandburg's transcript, and each of them seemed to be insisting that the song should be in the public domain. To listen to something about them (three minutes), click here: Mattie Hite and SJI MP3

A Recommendation - Max Morath in concert!

2012-01-10T01:47:00.000-05:00

I have mentioned the name Max Morath a couple of times in recent posts. His name will come up at least once or twice more in the near future because he is a really interesting individual with much to offer fans of "St. James Infirmary" and the period in which the song originated.

Max has a DVD, available at places like eBay, that I watched this evening and which I recommend wholeheartedly. Morath is a well-known ragtime pianist, but is also a remarkable raconteur and performer. On this DVD, a one-man show recorded in concert in 1992, Morath is clearly in his element, talking, jesting, educating, playing, singing. I was utterly impressed with the way Max inhabits the songs he sings and plays. He knows how to get to the center of a tune, how to transcend the notes and get to the heart of the characters he sings about. It's been a long time since I have enjoyed so many belly laughs in such a short time (the film runs about 116 minutes). For a well-spent fifteen dollars, you will learn a lot about the popular music of the early 20th century, and thoroughly enjoy yourself in the process. A delight!

MP3 Another Porter Grainger Song: "Song From A Cotton Field"

2012-01-06T21:30:00.000-05:00

I was going to post a 1927 recording by Porter Granger entitled, suitable for this time of year, "I Wonder What This New Year's Gonna Bring To Me." Unfortunately I have been unable, so far, to render a listenable mp3 from the 78 rpm record. So, instead I am posting this:

Back in November I uploaded a Porter Grainger song - one that, as far as I am aware, has never been made available since its release in 1927. Here is the other side of that record, "Song From A Cotton Field" as performed by "The Singin' Piano Man" himself, Porter Grainger. This one has a more serous lyric:

Ain't no use kickin' 'cause I'll be pickin'
'Til all my chillun is grown
By then I'll shuffle and skimp and scuffle
To have a field of my own

All my life I've been makin' it
All my life white folks takin' it
This old heart they jus' breakin' it
Ain't got a thing to show for what I've done done

What follows is a direct transfer, using my turntable, of a 78 rpm record that is 84 years old. What you hear has been saved at 128 kbps, which is the lowest sound resolution I find tolerable.

So, to hear The Singin' Piano Man" Porter Grainger, click on "Song From A Cotton Field"

You can follow the full lyric in the post below.

Lyric: Porter Grainger's "Song From A Cotton Field"

2012-01-06T21:15:00.000-05:00

Mmmmm mmmmm
Hay Hee Hi Ho Pickin' Cotton all day
Hay Hee Hi Ho Just a-pickin' away
The white folks knows I'm workin'
They knows won't be no shirkin'
Hee Hi Ho I knows I'll get my pay
Ain't no use kickin' 'cause I'll be pickin'
'Til all my chillun is grown
By then I'll shuffle and skimp and scuffle
To have a field of my own
All my life I've been makin' it
All my life white folks takin' it
This old heart they jus' breakin' it
Ain't got a thing to show for what I've done done
Things gets brighter and load gets lighter
So I'll keep a-pluggin' away
Sing my song like I'm happy and gay
All day
Jus' tell the world for me
My soul done set me free
That's the song I'll sing 'til they puts me under the clay
Ohhh chillun stop your grumblin'
No no, 'cause that's a block for stumblin'
Mmmm mmmm Jus keep on workin' and prayin'
You'll see that you'll conquer some day

Ain'tno use kickin' 'cause I'll be pickin'
'Til all my chillun is grown
By then I'll shuffle and skimp and scuffle
To have a field of my own
All my life I've been makin' it
All my life the white folks takin' it
This old heart they jus' breakin' it
Ain't got a thing to show for what I've done done
But things gets brighter and load gets lighter
So I'll keep pluggin' away
Sing my song like I'm happy and gay
All day
Jus' tell the world for me
My soul done set me free
That's the song I'll sing 'til they puts me under the clay

"Stack O' Lee Blues" - the first sheet music (and more)

2011-12-20T01:05:00.000-05:00

I have recently had some very interesting email exchanges with Max Morath, who I urge you to look into. I encountered him while ordering some sheet music that Mills Publishing produced back in 1924.

Irving Mills was, of course, Joe Primrose, pseudonymous and imaginary composer of "St. James Infirmary." Irving, along with his brother Jack, was also the proprietor of Mills Music, which early established itself as a purchaser and publisher of "blues" music. As I wrote in the book, I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, "Once it became clear to Irving and Jack Mills that there was money to be made from song copyrights, they were buying songs from black writers and reaping the profits from this newly popular musical form. . . . Musicians hoping to sell songs tramped the byways of Tin Pan Alley. They knew that if no one else would buy their songs, there was a good chance Irving Mills would." As we know, Irving made a bundle off "St. James Infirmary" even though nobody in particular wrote it.

So I was intrigued when I saw this sheet music. This was the first time "Stack O' Lee" (or Stagger Lee, Stagolee, etc.) had been published, and I wondered if the Mills brothers were, back in 1924, attempting the same obfuscation they later performed with "St. James Infirmary." I mean, here was this old blues song, one that had arisen from the streets with no discernible original composer, being offered for sale as written by Ray Lopez and Lew Colwell. In fact, in a kind of synchronistic fashion, I had also been reading the recent book by Cecil Brown titled Stagolee Shot Billy (Harvard University Press, 2003) - an account of the history of the Stagolee song. Colwell wrote that, "In 1924 songwriters Ray Lopez and Lew Colwell published a sheet-music version called 'Stack O' Lee Blues.' This fact alone attests to the popularity of the song." (p 135).

I was surprised to find that this original publication of the "Stack O' Lee" song had almost nothing to do with its title. It is a silly dance tune which only mentions its supposed protagonist in the chorus: "Stack O' Lee Blues I don't know what it means. Come on honey let's be stepping, 'cause my feet won't keep still, I've just got to dance until I've had my fill. Stack O' Lee Blues. Play it over for me, I go crazy when I hear it, anywhere I may be, I long to hear them play that Stack O' Lee."

Here are some other lyrics: "Eeny, meeny, miney mo, they'll play some more, now let us catch a nigger by the toe, one more encore. We've got to left foot, right foot, hop and skip, Oh Lordy! hear that tune, ain't that a pipp . . ."

Oh dear me.

So, while this sheet music for Stack O' Lee wasn't an out-and-out ripoff, at least one of the authors had a history of entanglement in copyright issues. As recounted by one of the best music sites on the Web, www.redhotjazz.com, Ray Lopez had tried to copyright what is generally recognized as the first jazz record, "Livery Stable Blues," later known as "Barnyard Blues." The Original Dixieland Jass Band had neglected to copyright their smash hit, and Lopez scrambled to profit from it - although testimony showed that the Dixieland Jass Band had based their song on one of Lopez's earlier compositions.

Songwriting was like gold and prospectors everywhere were hoping to profit from it.

Here is the score for "Stack O' Lee Blues" as published in 1924. The pages should enlarge if you click on them.

MP3 Monologue 2 - The "Let Her Go" Verse

2011-12-14T01:01:00.001-05:00

Well - as you can see from the comments section of the previous entry, the response to my question, "Is anyone interested in hearing more?" is a resounding "YES!" In fact 100% of respondents voted this way.

So, dear listeners, here is part two of this blog's SJI audio monologue series. In this episode, continuing where we left off, we consider some - and I emphasize "some" - of the history of the "Let Her Go" verse in SJI. It's about three minutes long. To listen, click on the following: "Let Her Go."

Next time, we'll take a break from these aural discussions and look at something else entirely.

MP3 Monologue - Carl Sandburg and "Those Gambler's Blues" (aka "St. James Infirmary")

2011-12-07T20:50:00.001-05:00

I am trying an experiment here. A little over two years ago a writer/broadcaster/music-historian asked me to record some monologues about "St. James Infirmary" for a possible radio show. I wound up recording sixteen entries, ranging in length from five minutes to one minute. Topics covered such areas as a history of the "Let Her Go" verse, Fess Williams, Don Redman & Louis Armstrong, The Hokum Boys, Irving Mills, and, of course, the significance of SJI.

The show, to my knowledge, was never produced, and having heard nothing lately I doubt it ever will be. So I have decided to post one, a few, or all of my entries on this blog.

First, though, I want to see if there is interest in this endeavor. I am including the first of those recordings: musings on Carl Sandburg's 1927 book of traditional songs, The American Songbag, which featured the first publication of "Those Gambler's Blues" (and which, as you know, would later become "St. James Infirmary"). This is, at five minutes, by far the longest of the entries. Is anyone interested in hearing more?

To listen, don your headphones and click on: Monologue on Carl Sandburg and "Those Gambler's Blues."

MP3 problems??

2011-12-06T00:23:00.001-05:00

I have recently discovered that, because of reorganization at the site I store the MP3 files for this blog, none of the music links were working. I have recently renewed those links and think I managed to find and fix them all. If you know of any MP3 files that still don't work, please let me know.

Max Morath and St. James Infirmary

2011-11-28T21:21:00.001-05:00

This illustration is a detail from a painting by the author

Not long ago, in my continuing research into SJI, I bought some sheet music on eBay. (More about that in an upcoming post.) When the vendor informed me that the sheet music was on the way I wrote back, I don't know why, and told him the reason I had purchased the music. We've enjoyed a few email correspondences since then. He once told me, in passing, that "I forgot to mention that I recorded Porter Grainger's Ain't Nobody's Business...for George Buck's SoloArt label back in 1994. I re-wrote it a bit." Recorded? I looked into that, and lo and behold there he was on emusic, and any number of websites, many devoted to ragtime piano. That's when I found out I was chatting with the Max Morath, who Wikipedia introduces like this: (He) "is an American ragtime pianist, composer, actor and author. He is best known for his piano playing, and is referred to as 'Mr. Ragtime'. He has been a devoted and prolific performer, writing several plays and productions, as well as being variously a recording artist, actor and radio and television presenter. Rudi Blesh billed Morath as a 'one-man ragtime army' . . ."

Max, I found out, has quite a presence in places like amazon.com and eBay - by which I mean he has recorded a lot, written some books, and so on. He seems a tireless fellow who also, I venture to say, feels a primal connection to music of the early SJI period. Max sent me the following delightful anecdote about playing SJI:

Years ago I was working with a melodrama company in Phoenix. After the show I'd stay late at the piano doing requests, hustling the drunks for tips. One night a well-dressed guy staggered over and asked me if I knew St James. I said yes, and sang two choruses -- "I went down..." and "Let her go...etc." He was ecstatic. "Nobody knows that song.!" He stuck a five dollar bill in my cup, (a huge brandy glass) and said he'd give me another five for every other verse I knew. I didn't know ANY more, but I figured by then I knew my donor well enough (and he was blotto enough) that I could increase my evening's net considerably if I took my time and used my imagination. . So I MADE UP three more verses on the spot. I have no idea what they were, but he kept the fives coming! I venture to say we were both happy.

I'd love to have been there!

MP3 Porter Grainger Song: "Nothin' But A Double Barrel Shot-Gun ('S Gonna Keep Me Away From You)"

2011-11-22T12:23:00.001-05:00

As promised on a posting eight months ago, I am uploading an MP3 of a song Porter Grainger recorded on October 4, 1927. I have found this nowhere on CD (or anywhere else, for that matter).

I set up my old Revolver turntable, connected it to a USB interface and transferred the original 78 rpm recording to my hard drive. I did try to remove some of the scratches and other noises, but decided against it as the result was worse than you will find here.

So here is Porter Grainger, the composer of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues," here billed as "The Singin' Piano Man," performing his composition (click on the title) "Nothin' But A Double Barrel Shot-Gun ('S Gonna Keep Me Away From You)". You can read along if you want - the lyrics are in the post below.

Lyric: Porter Grainger's "Nothin' But A Double Barrel Shot-Gun ('S Gonna Keep Me Away From You)"

2011-11-22T12:14:00.001-05:00

I'm mad, I'm mad today

I can't see nothin' but red
So mad yes I'm sad today
I'd just as doggone soon be dead
My gal just said she was through with me
She didn't even say what for
I know there'd been some dirty work,
So here's what I says to her

T'ain't nothin' but a double barrel shot-gun
Gonna keep me away from you
Now sister you'll think I'm the Battle of Bull Run
If you quit me like you said you'd do
Now listen: Even if I didn't want ya'
Just get this under your hat
Ain't nobody else gonna have ya'
So momma that's that
'Cause nothin' but a double barrel shot-gun
Gonna keep me away from you

NowI'm mean and I'm evil
As a jealous man can be
When it comes to a piece of furniture
What belongs to me
And I don't mind no funeral
'Cause I ain't scared to die
And I couldn't be no different
If I doggone try

Neither lightnin' nor thunder don't scare me a bit
Bring on your six-shootin' pistols
I ain't even bothered about it
I'd just take my bare hands and hit a lion on his jaw, grrrrgh
I ain't even scared of a mother-in-law, no sir
Now I'll fight a nest of hornets with four rattlesnakes throwed in
I'll grab a tiger by his whiskers and I'll smack him on his chin
But two long steel barrels with its triggers pulled back
Make me run clean on down the railroad track, yessir
But nothin' but a double barrel shot-gun
Gonna keep me away from you

A.L. Lloyd and SJI

2011-11-18T15:32:00.008-05:00

This interesting illustration accompanied Lloyd's article in Keynote Magazine, 1947.

Well, it feels good to be back on this SJI blog. I have been so busy over the past year renovating the small house Pam and I now live in, here in remote Southern Saskatchewan, that I have had no time to pursue much in the way of other interests. The main house, at a little over 800 square feet, is too small to comfortably accommodate visitors, and so I have worked hard over the summer to turn a shed into a comfortable living area. But winter is descending, the temperature today is -15C (5F), and it is too cold for me to work on further renovations to the small cabin which will eventually serve as our guest house. And so here I am, back at I Went Down To St. James Infirmary, after a pretty long absence.

Correspondent Alan Balfour (thank you Alan!), from the UK, recently wrote a comment on this blog mentioning that he has a copy of the original article that the revered music historian, A.L. Lloyd, wrote for the January, 1947 edition of Keynote: The Music Magazine. Although I had tried, I was never able to find the original article, but did read it through secondary accounts. Alan sent me scans of the original document.

Now, I have to emphasize that this article was a pivotal event in our understanding of the history of "St. James Infirmary." Written twenty years after the song was first recorded (and who knows how many years after it first appeared), A.L. Lloyd crystallized the notion that "St. James Infirmary" was a direct descendent of the much older song "The Unfortunate Rake." According to Lloyd "The Unfortunate Rake" also gave rise to the archetypal cowboy song "Streets of Laredo" (aka "The Cowboy's Lament," etc.) as well as to "St. James Infirmary." Since then the history of SJI has been traced, with nary a doubt, from "The Unfortunate Rake" to "Streets of Laredo" to "Saint James Infirmary."

Re-reading this article I was again struck by Lloyd's peculiar logic, for he concentrates on the relation (which is, I am sure, indisputable) between "The Unfortunate Rake" and "Streets of Laredo." Then, through some process of, uhm, magical thinking, inserts "St. James Infirmary" into the mix with very little in the way of transitional or supportive argument. Even so, this is the moment that SJI became fixed in history as a direct descendent of "The Unfortunate Rake."

But A.L. Lloyd was mistaken.

1927 Porter Grainger songs

2011-03-23T18:45:00.003-04:00

I've just received a 78 rpm record by Porter Grainger with side A titled, "Nothin' But A Double Barrel Shot-Gun ('s Gonna Keep Me Away From You)," and side B titled, "Song From A Cotton Field." This is OKEH 8516, and so recorded October 4th, 1927. That's the same year his "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" was recorded.

On the label of this record Grainger is called "The Singin' Piano Man." I plan to transfer these two songs into MP3 files, but we're still a little unsettled here in Saskatchewan. I've been busy renovating our new home while we live in friend James Page's house (aka Wild Prairie Man), and expect to move in in a couple of weeks. Then, once Pam and I get the study set up, and I'm able to find my trusty Revolver turntable, I will be able to, first, listen to this recording and then post it on this site. Meanwhile, if anyone has any information about these tracks we shall, of course, more than welcome your comments!

Emmett Miller, Hank Williams, Cliff Friend, Irving Mills, and "Lovesick Blues"

2011-02-17T23:38:00.007-05:00

In 2008 I wrote on this blog an entry about the famous Hank Williams song, Lovesick Blues. Written in 1922 as a song in a play about lovelorn pilots called "Oooh Ernest!", it was recorded by the yodeling minstrel Emmett Miller in 1928, but did not become a hit until Hank Williams took it to the charts in 1949. The writing credit (at least after the first recording) was shared between Cliff Friend and Irving Mills.

In my book I wrote extensively about this song, including the following:

"Rex Griffin, an early country singer, had recorded the song in 1929, closely modelled on Emmett Miller's version. Hank had both this version and Emmett Miller's in his record collection. His 1949 release was credited to Griffin as composer, with Hank Williams as arranger. Acuff-Rose was listed as the publishing company. When Irving Mills heard about this he sued, and in winning the suit he ensured that the ownership remained with Mills Music ... "In the depth of the depression Cliff Friend was nearly penniless and sold all his rights to 'Lovesick Blues' to Irving Mills for a reported five hundred dollars. In 2004 it was one of fifty songs the American Library of Congress added to its National Recording Registry as having significant historical and cultural importance."

Correspondent Page Schorer aka Old_Cowboy recently wrote that he found a quote from Cliff Friend on this music site CountryMusicTreasures.com:

"I was a fighter pilot in the First World War at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. I was impressed by the lovesick boys who left their young wives and sweethearts for the service, blue. I had been writing songs since I was 12. So I wrote 'Lovesick Blues.' After the war I went to New York City. Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike) recorded the song on Perfect Records—a good job, but the song, ahead of its time, was a flop. I took the song back from Jack Mills. Twenty years went by and fate stepped in in the guise of a stranger who met Hank Williams and sold him 'Lovesick Blues' as his song for $100. Fred Rose published it, but I had the copyright. When Williams' record hit the market, I flew to Nashville and took all the money, since I was also the publisher. Meanwhile, Frank Ifield in England had sold 4 million, and altogether, the song had sold 10 million."

Is this braggadacio on Cliff Friend's part, or is historical "fact" being once again fragile? By the time Hank Williams recorded the song Irving Mills reportedly had full control of the copyright. Jack Mills, cited by Friend in the quote above, was Irving's brother and president of Mills Music Publishing. It sounds like Friend was claiming he regained some rights to the song by the time of Hank Williams' recording.

Addresses of Porter Grainger

2011-01-29T17:34:00.005-05:00

Mr. Walter J. Morrison III, who you can read more about in the post below, noted that at least one of Porter Grainger's hand-written pages of sheet music included his address. Mr. Morrison suggested that if we could discover when that particular song was copyrighted, we would know where he lived that year.

As it happens, the Duke Ellington Music Society (DEMS) contains the following entry: "Make Me Love You, with words and music by Porter Grainger and Jo. Trent, was deposited for copyright on 15Mar27. The song was recorded by Miss Evelyn Preer with Duke Ellington's Orchestra on 10Jan27; the title was never issued and the masters were destroyed; test pressings are unknown."

We now have a number of addresses for the elusive Mr. Grainger:
- The 1925 New York City telephone book notes that Porter Grainger and Robert Ricketts were a song-writing team, with addresses at 2347 7th Avenue, and 1547 Broadway Rm 204, NYC.
- Mr. Morrison's page of sheet music shows that in 1927 Grainger was living at 1809 7th Avenue, Apt. 20, in NYC.
- The 1930 census shows Grainger living at 2 W. 130th, in NYC.
- His World War 2 draft registration gives the same address as above, but notes the street as 120th - I think we can safely assume that one or the other is in error, and that Grainger was living at the same address for at least twelve years.

Does anyone know of Rita Arnold?

2011-01-29T16:46:00.008-05:00

I recently received a letter from Walter J. Morrison III informing me that he owns quite a few pieces of sheet music that were handwritten by Porter Grainger. Many of these were made specifically for a Rita Arnold, who Mr. Morrison believes was a vaudeville/broadway singer. He purchased the music . . . wait, I'll let Mr. Morrison tell the story:

"I don't know much about Rita Arnold. I bought from the estate of - if I remember correctly - her granddaughter, many many years ago, a box of sheet music. It had to have 400-500 pieces. Most I traded off. These were period music sheets, marked with addresses in the NYC Tin Pan Alley, of which I'm sure you're familiar. I was told by the auctioneer that Rita Arnold had been a Broadway/vaudeville actress and singer, but I never pursued it because at the time I didn't know what was in the box.
"In the pieces I've kept, I have a typewritten lyric sheet for the song 'Fit to be tied,' the title of which was edited down from "I'm fit to be tied" (edit is on the page), and is copy-written 1934 . . . I also have typewritten lyrics for a song called 'Try gettin a good nights sleep.'
"In original hand written music, I have the following titles,
HOT MAMA, - SIGNED
HE JUST DONT APPEAL - SIGNED
COME UP AND SEE ME
MAKE ME LOVE YOU - SIGNED
MECHANICAL MAN
NO MANS MAMA
TIRED BUSINESS MAN
GOOD NIGHTS SLEEP
BABY HAVE A DREAM ON ME
POOR LITTLE GIGOLETTE
CUGARETTES, CIGARS
SUGAR HILL JAMBOREE
HOLLYWOOD
NEVER MARRY A TIRED BUSINESS MAN
TIRED O SAVIN - SIGNED
DOWN BY THE VINEGAR WORKS
The ones that are signed, state they are by Porter Grainger. The ones that are not signed are definitely written by the same hand, but I assume they may not be by him but are adaptations of songs for Rita Arnold, done by him."

It seems that Mr. Grainger wrote some music specifically for Ms. Arnold, and hence the hand written pages. I have searched for information about Rita Arnold, but nothing has turned up. If anyone out there has knowledge of Ms. Arnold, please drop a line. Meanwhile, Walter J. Morrison III was kind enough to send me scans of several pages of this sheet music (one of which you see here) as written by Porter Grainger.

Blind Willie McTell biography

2010-12-06T21:06:00.007-05:00

I want to point out a very sweet - crisp, detailed, and well written - online biography of Blind Willie McTell. Readers of this site will know that McTell, because of the popularity of his rendition of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues," figures fairly prominently in the history of "St. James Infirmary" - for the same reason there are a number of posts here about Porter Grainger.

It is not easy, not by a long shot, to write a concise biography as well as Mr. Obrecht has done. You can find it via the link above, or by going to http://jasobrecht.com/blind-willie-mctell-life-music/

Happy Birthday, Porter Grainger

2010-10-22T20:01:00.004-04:00

Anonymous just dropped me a line, reminding me that Porter Grainger was born on this day, October 22, in 1891 (a birth date, by the way, that was discovered right here, at I Went Down to St. James Infirmary).

So - Happy Birthday, Porter Grainger.

Moving to Saskatchewan

2010-09-18T23:57:00.011-04:00

In a little over a week Pam and I will be cramming our belongings into a U-Haul truck and driving three thousand kilometers to a village in southern Saskatchewan. A couple of years ago I climbed to the top of a grain elevator and took the panorama of the village posted above.

We shall be spending a lot of time settling in - most of all, renovating a small house on the edge of the town, Val Marie. There will not be much time for SJI musings. I do, however, intend to eventually revise the book that this blog is an extension of - but one does need to be careful about embarking on too many projects at one time.

Common As Air - a reading recommendation

2010-09-18T22:50:00.008-04:00

I have been away from this blog for some time, and this will be one of my last posts for some time yet. More about that later - for now, though, here is a reading recommendation.

Lewis Hyde's book Common As Air - Revolution, Art, and Ownership was released about a month ago. The book offers a stimulating discussion of copyright and ownership of "intellectual property," areas that I have found unavoidable in my researches into "St. James Infirmary" and its ilk. We know something about how a song like "St. James Infirmary" grew organically, and what happened to the song when it was suddenly transformed into an owned thing, "protected" by copyright from the very processes that gave it life.

"Common As Air " brings a fresh perspective to questions - today more important than ever - arising out of ownership of the intangible. I recommend it highly - although I doubt that Irving Mills would have given it much praise.

Ethel, Portia, and Porter - Porter Grainger's family?

2010-06-27T11:20:00.008-04:00

As I try to find out more about Porter Grainger, the view becomes murkier where one would hope for clarity. For example, there are plenty of references to Ethel Finney (or Finnie - even the census reports record her surname differently; Finney seems to be the correct spelling), with whom he recorded a number of songs between 1923 and 1926. With Ethel he (apparently) had a daughter, Portia Grainger. In his excellent book "Never Sell a Copyright"about Joe Davis (with whom Grainger collaborated), Bruce Bastin wrote, "When renewing the copyright for "Wylie Street Blues," Davis claimed it in his name and that of Portia Grainger, daughter of the late Porter Grainger. When first published by Triangle Music in 1927, Davis and Grainger were credited as writers. Upon renewal, more than one might have been tempted to drop the name of the deceased co-writer."

The suggestion here, of course, is that Davis was being kind, as Portia could now receive royalties. The song, however, never made much of an impression, and her royalties must have been close to nil.

Still, Portia Grainger and Ethel Finney (or Finnie) Grainger remain elusive. Bastin's reference is one of the few that suggests Grainger had a family. In researching U.S. census records, I have found Ethel Finney in 1900, 1910, 1920, as well as 1930. In 1920 she was living in New Orleans, with her father Noble (a butler), her mother Mary, and her brother, also named Noble and a pastor. Ethel was a grammar school teacher. She was 22 years old, and single. In 1930 she was (again or still?) living with her parents at the same address. She was now Ethel Grainger (her parents' name is recorded as Finnie, rather than Finney as in the earlier census records). Her daughter Portia was five years old, and she had a step-son called Marion LeBlanc, aged 6. (As a sidebar, a young couple called LeBlanc - Joseph and Mattie - were neighbours in 1910.) She reported her age as 30 (2 years younger than in previous census records), and that she had been married for 10 years. (Meanwhile, in New York City, Porter Grainger declared he had been married for five years.) Ethel was working as a cook in a private home - nowhere in the 1920 and 1930 records does she claim the profession of musician.

It seems unlikely that these census results are coincidental (although, of course, that is a possibility). What they suggest is intriguing. We could create a variety of scenarios. Perhaps Porter was correct, and they had been married a mere five years - that is, after Ethel became pregnant with Portia. Returning home - having become disillusioned with the music business, or with her husband (who, remember, is reputed to have been homosexual), Ethel altered the wedding date to something more socially acceptable.

Then again, there is no solid evidence that the Grainger in question with these census results was Porter (aside, that is, from the striking similarity with Ethel's daughter's name). Coincidence seems unlikely but not implausible.

Thanks to reader Andrew Barrett for leading me to Bruce Bastin's most interesting book, Never Sell a Copyright: Joe Davis and His Role in the New York Music Scene 1916 to 1978 (Storyville Publications, 1990)

Phil Baxter, bandleader, 'co-composer' of Gambler's Blues (aka St. James Infirmary)

2010-06-12T01:18:00.005-04:00

Today, I'm revisiting an earlier post about Phil Baxter, a pianist and band leader who was active in the 1920s and 1930s. Phil Baxter was a prolific and successful song-writer. Among his better known compositions we can include "Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas," "Piccolo Pete" (and the follow-up, "Harmonica Harry" - both were early novelty hits for Ted Weems and his orchestra), and "A Faded Summer Love" (which was a hit for Bing Crosby in 1931).

Baxter also claimed co-authorship for "St. James Infirmary." He and Carl Moore actually published the song in 1925, but they neglected to apply for copyright. It is possible that around 1921 Baxter and Moore toured together as a duo.They would ride the train from town to town and perform skits and music, with Moore on drums, Baxter at the piano. Baxter eventually settled in Kansas City where, leading the house band at the El Torreon ballroom, he displaced the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks as Kansas City's favourite dance orchestra.

Baxter was unable to perform after 1933 because of arthritis. On the verge of his leaving for Texas, the Kansas City Journal-Post ran a long article about Baxter which included this comment: "Baxter has had some litigation over the authorship of one song, which has been in circulation as 'St. James Infirmary,' but which he said he composed long ago and called 'Gambler's Blues.' He said he published it privately in Texas years ago, and that a New York publisher picked it up." That New York publisher was undoubtedly Gotham Music, whose president was Irving Mills.

Information about Phil Baxter is very hard to come by. Recordings of his can still be found on CD, but in compilations with titles like volume 2 of Jazz the World Forgot, or Texas and Tennessee Territory Bands. If anyone has information about Phil I would love to hear from you. I understand that Baxter's friend, Cliff Halliburton, wrote a biography of Phil, but I have been unable to find it and suspect it was never published.

A bit of a departure - Josh Ritter, Stagger Lee, Delia, etc.

2010-04-16T23:08:00.012-04:00

This is a bit of a departure - an article that has no real connection to St. James Infirmary. Unless, that is, you see murder ballads like "Stagger Lee" (aka "Stackalee," etc.) and "Delia" as connected to SJI via their hallowed positions in the pantheon of American roots music.

Josh Ritter has just released a CD, So Runs the World Away. I have to admit that I am a big fan of Ritter, and was delighted, excited to hear a piece on that album titled "Folk Bloodbath." He's done, I think, something remarkable here. As Ritter acknowledges in the liner notes, he started with a tune Mississippi John Hurt recorded in 1928, "Louis Collins." That's the basic melody, and the refrain. Ritter incorporates references to "Delia," "Stagger Lee," and even "Barbara Allen" in building a contemporary and charming song, pulling references from those songs lyrics.

Comparing the original tunes, it sounds like Mississippi John Hurt, in the grand folk tradition, might have incorporated bits of "Delia" when he wrote "Louis Collins." Hurt's reference to funereal red dresses is transmuted into red suits and ox-blood Stetsons in the Ritter song.

There are some interesting plot changes; the fellow who shot Delia enters Ritter's song this way:

The judge was a mean one, his name was 'Hanging Billy Lyons,' He said, "You always been a bad man, Stag, I'm gonna hang you this time." And the angels laid him away.

By the end of the song, Louis Collins, Delia, and Stagger Lee are all dead, as they were (albeit separately) in their earlier incarnations. The closing lines are a treat; I won't reveal them here.

This kind of creative referencing is of the sort that is difficult with copyright-protected songs. Back when "St. James Infirmary" was owned and protected by Irving Mills, nothing remotely approaching this could have been done with it. In fact, SJI might just be coming into its own in this century. You might want to check out NO Notes for some, uhm, notes about more modern versions.

Looking for George Clardy (and a bit more about Porter Grainger)

2010-04-05T22:49:00.008-04:00

Sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s, George Clardy co-wrote a song called "Quit Throwin' It, McGivern!" with Porter Grainger. Bob Hutchins, who has commented on this blog about Clardy, is researching his life .

According to Mr. Hutchins, George Clardy was born in Dubuque in 1886. He worked as a lyricist and a cartoonist/illustrator, living in New Jersey and in New York City. He wrote campaign songs for Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey. Along with Willie "the Lion" Smith he wrote the songs, "It's the Breaks," and "Down in Chicazola Town."

Clardy's aunt was Mr. Hutchins' grandmother. In 1948 Clardy wrote a letter to his aunt, mentioning briefly Porter Grainger (and, separately, Willie "the Lion" Smith). Clardy had suffered a couple of strokes, and this might account for some of the syntax in his letter:
"The enclosed song, 'Quit Throwin' It, McGivern!" was with Porter Grainger. Twenty years ago, Porter put on his colored musical comedy in 'Lucky Sambo.' Like a rest of others cleaned up 2 1/2 Million Dollars when he sold out to Hurtig & Seamon's Theatres. Then he saved his money, bought wisely in real estate in Bowling Greene, Kentucky."

This suggests that Grainger struck it rich with "Lucky Sambo," and invested wisely in his home town of Bowling Green. Neither Mr. Hutchins, nor music historian Elliott Hurwitt, believe that 2.5 million dollars is a remote possibility for a black songwriter of that period. "Lucky Sambo," an all-black musical comedy, had a one week run at New York's New Colonial Theatre in 1925. It might have also had life as a traveling show. It seems that Grainger co-wrote all the music and songs, and probably played piano during the performances.

If you have any information about George Clardy, please leave a message - either at this blog or to Mr. Hutchins himself at upleap79108@mypacks.net.

Moving towards (or away from?) a biographical outline of Porter Grainger

2010-03-29T19:13:00.022-04:00

No entries on this blog have generated as much response as the ones concerning Porter Grainger. This is kind of odd, because - aside from a few copyrighted songs and a few recorded performances on which he plays piano in the background, nobody knows much about Grainger.

(For those of you new to this site, Grainger is connected to "St. James Infirmary" through a song he wrote in the 1920s: "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues.")

There are a few tidbits of information about him - enough to suggest a talented songwriter whose role in the development of American popular song has been consistently underrated, if not outright ignored.

When researching I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, I discovered both where and when he was born. This was not a particularly difficult thing , and reaffirms the general lack of interest in this man. We have yet to discover when he died. One contributer to this site, Andrew Barrett, noted that Grainger renewed the 1926 copyright of a book he co-wrote with his friend Bob Ricketts, How to Sing and Play the Blues Like the Phonograph and Stage Artists, on October 7th, 1954. As a result, one might assume that he was alive in 1954. In 1955 though, a writing partner reportedly renewed the copyright for a song they wrote together, replacing (the now deceased) Porter Grainger's name with his daughter's, Portia Grainger.

This last bit of news, that Porter might have had a daughter, does not necessarily fly in the face of descriptions of Porter Grainger as an openly flamboyant homosexual - but it does give us pause for reflection. The 1930 census lists an Ethel and a Portia Grainger living in New Orleans. Portia was then 5 years old, and her mother 30. It adds that Ethel - although not living with her husband at the time of the census - was married, and had been for 10 years. Ethel Grainger, Howard Rye states in the liner notes to the CD Porter Grainger 1923-1929, recorded under the name Ethel Finnie. Porter played piano on these recordings. I have noted in the book, though, that Grainger claimed (on the 1930 census) that he had been married since he was 33, which would have been around 1924, rather than Ethel's statement of about 1920. Grainger also claimed on his WW1 draft card that he was already married (that is, before 1920), but this could reflect a reluctance to being drafted (having dependents could affect one's priority for the draft). It's slippery, isn't it?

The evidence that Porter had a daughter Portia, as far as I can tell, is not definitive, and we cannot even claim with assurance that (census statements notwithstanding) Porter was ever married. Nor can we claim, aside from some circumstantial commentary, that he was homosexual. If he did not have a daughter Portia, the likelihood increases that he was still alive in 1955, when the copyright on his song was renewed.

I would be delighted to be told that I am incorrect, that we do have more substantiated information about his life.

Correspondent Bob Hutchins wrote to me about a letter his grandmother received in 1948 (see the post above) suggesting that Grainger could have returned to Bowling Green once he made a bit of money. Music historian Elliott Hurwitt notes that we have mostly looked for clues to Grainger's later life elsewhere, in places like New York and Chicago - perhaps Tennessee might serve as a good hunting ground, at least as far as discovering the place and date of Porter Grainger's death.

(ps Andrew Barret sent me a scan of a photograph showing Porter Grainger posing with a large crowd of other musicians/songwriters, including Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton and over a dozen others (many unidentified). Morton died in 1941, so the photograph obviously predates that event. Grainger's inclusion in this collection suggests, to me at least, that he was regarded highly in some music circles.)

SJI on old-time radio - Again!

2010-03-12T18:57:00.010-05:00

You will recall, a year ago WFHB public radio in Bloomington, Indiana, hosted a live radio show featuring none other than Carl Moore, early claimant to the authorship of "St. James Infirmary."

They're doing it again!

No, no, no - not the same show! Carl Moore will be (as far as I'm aware) nowhere in sight (or sound) - although my erstwhile contact, WFHB alumnus Mike Kelsey, assures me that Cab Calloway will be there. And that a Calloway tribute will feature a version of SJI (which was, for many years, Cab's signature song).

According to music charts compiled by Record Research Inc., for the days before there were any record charts, Cab Calloway was the first (and last???) person to have a top 40 hit with St. James Infirmary - in 1931.

So cuddle up to your radios for a live broadcast, from the famous Buskirk-Chumley Theater in beautiful downtown Bloomington, at 8 pm (Indiana time), for "Digital Daze" - including a tribute to the master of scat, the wizard of radio dance music, Cab Calloway.

Or . . . tune your desktops and laptops here for a live feed. Saturday, March 13th, at 8 o'clock p.m. - Indiana time.

Ruminations on "Let Her Go"

2010-01-21T00:09:00.003-05:00

Readers of this blog will be familiar with quite a few recent entries discussing various incarnations of the verse that begins "Let her go, let her go, God bless her."

Over at No Notes, Rob Walker has posted a lengthy rumination on "St. James Infirmary" and its "Let Her Go" verse. As always, his writing is vivid and captivating. I too had been pondering the almost - or seemingly - haphazard injection of the "let her go" sentiment, and how it gives the song its peculiar aura. Rob's conclusion is well worth reading, but I advise none to rush to the end of his narrative - there is great pleasure to be had in the journey.

The Denton and Haskins influence in a new variation of SJI

2009-12-27T10:26:00.016-05:00

I was looking through the Mudcat Cafe site the other day. Mudcat is devoted to the exploration and preservation of traditional songs, and is a valuable resource. One correspondent, Dorothy, recently wrote, "My brother used to sing me a song. The lyrics seem similar to ones I have read in your listings. I used to love him singing it . . . I am still confused as to where my brother would have heard it. I miss him so much, he died of a brain hemorrhage aged 42. This was 31 years ago. I still miss him so much, but my memory of his singing is so vivid I can still hear him." Dorothy included the lyrics to the song, which can be found here.

Those lyrics, Dorothy, are really interesting. It would be good to know how long ago your brother started singing them. They come from all sorts of places - from recorded songs, from the Sandburg versions . . . and even, judging by the second-to-last verse, sort of made up but similar to earlier verses.

The first two verses, though, first appeared in 1930, when the company Denton and Haskins published a version of "St. James Infirmary" to rival the stranglehold Mills Publishing had over the song. On the inside front cover they included traditional versions of the song that had been collected by the poet (and folk song archivist) Carl Sandburg. But what they were selling - or, once Mills launched a cease and desist lawsuit, trying to sell - was a new version of the song, arranged by Claude Austin with additional lyrics by William J. McKenna.

I have never encountered a recording of this version of the song. In fact it died pretty quickly once the legal wrangling ended. Still, there was a brief time when this sheet music was circulating, probably mostly around New York City. Obviously parts of it found their way into your brother's song, which is an example of the many guises "St. James Infirmary" has assumed in its adventurous life.

Lyrics to St. James Infirmary - Denton and Haskins edition

2009-12-27T10:23:00.009-05:00

In reference to the posting above, here are the lyrics from the version of "St. James Infirmary" as published (and copyrighted) by the music publisher Denton and Haskins in 1930. (You might find it interesting to compare them with Dorothy's version, found here.)

I'm a gambler, never did refuse a bet
Played for millions in my time
But I've had the biggest loss that I ever met
Tho' I didn't lose a dime
Lady Luck threw me as a pal
When she took my lovin' gal

I went to Saint James Infirmary
My baby there she lay
On a long cold marble table
I looked and turned away

What is my baby's chances?
I asked old Doctor Tarp
He said "By six this evening,
She'll be playing a golden harp"

Back to St. James Infirmary
I saw my baby's face
So white, so drawn and faded
Of her good looks not a trace

I started in a prayin'
Right there upon my knees
"Good-Bye, my lovin' baby"
My heart began to freeze.

Porter Grainger - birth date discovered

2009-11-06T21:44:00.016-05:00

Above, a detail from the 1925 New York City telephone book, showing addresses for music partners Porter Grainger and Robert Ricketts

I recently received an email from an enthusiastic Porter Grainger fan. In fact, his first comment was to point out that "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" actually made it onto piano rolls! Readers of this blog - and of the book - will know that the composer of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" was Porter Grainger. Grainger was one of those souls who disappeared almost completely from public consciousness, even though he left a significant mark on the music of the 1920s. His contribution has been minimized, and I (as well as my correspondent, Andrew Barrett) think that is inaccurate and unfair.

Generally, not much is known about Grainger, aside from the fact that he wrote songs for Bessie Smith, and accompanied her in concerts and revues (a very fancy dresser, he was for a time part of Bessie's inner circle). He is one of the characters central to the story of SJI, and makes an important appearance in my book. Still, even the most reliable resources, such as the remarkable allmusic.com, say things like "Very little is known about the pianist Porter Grainger . . . even his birth and death dates are unknown."

I can't help with the date of his death, but while researching the book I did discover when (and where) he was born. The census records don't help. He first makes an appearance in the 1900 records, which show he was living with his grandfather, and was about nine years old. His draft cards, however, are another matter.

Above, Grainger's WWII draft card, revealing his date of birth.

Both Grainger's WWI and WWII draft cards reveal his birth date as October 22, 1891. He was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky. His 1917 card declares his profession as "Composer of songs." His WWII card shows he was employed at the Minsky-Eltinge Theatre at W42nd Street, in New York City.

These draft cards - both for Grainger and his friend Robert Ricketts - bring up further questions that are covered in the book.

For those who enjoy clarifying the obscure, Mr. Barrett wrote to me, "If you think Porter Grainger is obscure, try his friend Robert W. Ricketts (bandleader, pianist(?), led 'Ricketts' Stars' accompanying many blues singers) and Everett Robbins (a FANTASTIC blues pianist and singer)." Everett Robbins - whose piano rolls are of particular interest to Mr. Barrett - shared writing credit with Grainger for the famous blues song (first recorded by Bessie Smith) "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do."

Blues in da fog - striding into the present

2009-11-03T19:31:00.009-05:00

I don't usually do this. In fact, this is the first time. Taking a giant step into the present, I mean.

This site concerns itself with the early days of "St. James Infirmary" - mostly the first three decades of the last century. After all, this blog is subtitled "Inquiries in to the early years of SJI." And I want to keep it's focus sharp, well defined.

For a more inclusive overview of the song - that is, embracing the whole gamut from ancient to contemporary - nobody can better the web's premiere St. James Infirmary website, Rob Walker's NO NOTES. NO NOTES, in fact, is where this particular posting most appropriately belongs.

Still, today I can't help myself. I recently received a note that read: "Hi we are a french band and this is our version of saint james infirmary, please tell us what you think."

Well, the fact is that I really like this. Don't expect to fully understand the lyrics on first listen. The vocalist leans heavily on her vowels, playing her voice like a reed instrument. While the photograph above this post shows four people, this (very well executed - it's lovely to look at) single-camera video shows six musicians, all of whom are fully engaged in the music.

Blues in da fog brings it all together in a wonderful jumbo of sound, a kind of sculpture in song.

If this is evidence of the evolution of the song, give us more!

(You can see the full video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUVorcXQmVk - for some reason, the right edge of the image is cut off here, hiding the band's trumpeter.)

On the Trail of "Let Her Go, God Bless Her"

2009-08-28T23:51:00.015-04:00

Just when I thought we were done with tracking the "Let her go, God bless her" lyric from St. James Infirmary, correspondent Richard Matteson sent me a number of emails. Thanks to Richard I have purchased a copy of the 1902 Harvard University Songs. It arrived in the mail today.

In an introductory note the compiler E.F. DuBois wrote that he "has tried to make a collection of songs that are actually sung at Harvard, by the Glee Club, by the crowds at the football games, and by the undergraduates and graduates." The result is a collection of twenty-seven songs starting with "Fair Harvard" and ending with "The Marseillaise." Sprinkled in between are titles such as "The Levee Song," "Jolly Boating Weather," "Bring the Wagon Home, John," and "The Mulligan Musketeers."

"She's Gone, Let Her Go," with its chorus that is so familiar from SJI, appears on page 72. The melody is utterly ordinary, a kind of parlor ditty that one could imagine being sung by hearty fellows in argyle sweaters, gathered around a piano with drinks in their hands. The lyric is the same as that identified in a March 21st entry on this blog, from the 1909 Harvard song book. The fact that it has appeared in at least two of these books, and that it is joined by only twenty-six others in this 1902 book, attests to its popularity at the time - at least among students at Harvard.

If you click on the music sheet here, you should view a larger copy that is easier to read.

While in "St. James Infirmary" this lyric gives the song a sinister quality, here it is as if the singer is saying about a woman who has left him, "It's your loss, Toots." Regardless of the fickleness of love, the singer remains constant: "There may be a change in the weather . . . but there'll never be a change in me." One can get the impression that this verse was indiscriminately, to use modern terminology, cut and pasted into SJI - and that the sinister shadow it casts is little more than a careless mistake. Had "St. James Infirmary" waited another ten years for its first recording, perhaps this verse would have dropped away, or been altered.

Of course, the 1902 date of this song does not help in tracking the birth of "St. James Infirmary." In that case, even circumstantial evidence does not take us much further back than, say, 1916.

Many thanks to Richard for this. (Mr. Matteson has a number of interesting areas on the web, including a series of entries on different versions of SJI - one of those pages can be found here: St. James Infirmary - Version 4 Jimmie Rodgers 1930.)

Paul Whiteman and the Beatles

2009-08-08T11:47:00.016-04:00

During the years that I was researching and writing I Went Down to St. James Infirmary I exchanged many letters with the big band historian Joseph. E. Bennett. In fact, we continue to write to each other.

Recently I sent him a copy of Elijah Wald's most recent book, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music (Oxford University Press, 2009). Having sent the book via amazon.com I quickly wrote him a letter, explaining why I thought he would be the least bit interested in a book about either the Beatles or rock 'n roll. Bennett had played with big bands in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He befriended many of the big band leaders, researched and talked to them about their various histories, and wrote many articles for publications such as the recently defunct Joslin's Jazz Journal. He has an as yet unpublished 500 page history of the big bands, including many photographs, several of his own paintings (such as the one you see here, of "Hot Lips" Henry Busse), and previously unpublished biographical details about many of the band leaders.
In several letters to me Mr. Bennett noted that histories of popular music generally disparage the types of bands he played with and wrote about. While these bands, parlaying pre-arranged, "sweet" jazz, were by far the most popular and the most long-lived of the bands, it's the "swing" orchestras that are credited as being most representative of the big band era. "The commercial, stylized sound," Bennett wrote, "was criticized as 'Mickey Mouse,' 'corny,' and 'dull' by the swing enthusiasts" but "without exception the swing bands faded quickly while remaining in recorded form as what the big band era was all about."

Paul Whiteman is the most obvious example of this form of historical exclusionism. The self-titled "King of Jazz" was an accomplished, classically trained musician. (In fact, he and Phil Baxter - one of the characters who makes frequent appearances on this blog - served in the navy together during WWI. Neither Whiteman nor Baxter had yet made names for themselves, but Baxter organized a jazz band that he would take ashore when they were on leave. Baxter had no room in his "hot" band for a violin, though, and so Whiteman remained aboard ship.) Whiteman was the most popular band leader for years, often racking up six or seven of the best-selling records-of-the-year during the 1920s and 1930s. In fact, the Joel Whitburn book, A Century of Pop Music, lists no less than 78 Whiteman records among the top 40 rankings between 1920 and 1934.

Writers on music history have their biases, and generally prefer more esoteric performers over the ones who appealed to the masses. Elijah Wald attempts to correct this imbalance in his book, and in fact devotes a goodly amount of space to Paul Whiteman in doing so. Do not be distracted by the title - it's the subtitle that matters here. An Alternative History of American Popular Music is a fantastic read, it moves seamlessly through the eras, and recognizes the common (wo)man as having a powerful influence on the evolution of musical forms.

Joseph Bennett has at times opined that his time has past, that nobody cares about the music that swept the nation for at least two decades of the twentieth century. If Elijah Wald has any say, Mr Bennett will be proven wrong.

And yet another "Let Her Go, God Bless Her" post

2009-06-30T23:41:00.012-04:00

Over the past three months I've written at least six posts focusing on songs containing the "Let her go, God bless her" lyric so famous in "St. James Infirmary." These have ranged, chronologically, from their appearance in a 1909 university song book to a recording by the Louvin Brothers in 1958. Thanks to readers of this blog, I have two more examples to share in this, yet another posting about "Let her go, God bless her."

Reader Jesse said "Nelstone's Hawaiians recorded a song called 'You'll never find a daddy like me' which has the same chorus and is contemporary to or earlier to the Burnett & Foster recording." Jesse added that s(he) had only heard it on 78 rpm record.

The Rutherford and Foster song, "Let Her Go, I'll Meet Her" was recorded in 1929. The song Jesse referred to, by Nelstone's Hawaiians, was recorded September 21, 1928. Neither Hubert Nelson nor James Touchstone were Hawaiian. They came from Alabama, they sounded like they came from Alabama, but their music featured wonderful Hawaiian-style guitar playing. Our friend "The Old, Weird America" has an excellent article about them, which you can access here. You will also be able to listen to "You'll Never Find a Daddy Like Me;" keep an ear out for:

There's been a change in the ocean
There's been a change in the sea
If they'll give me back my sweet mama

There'll probably be a change in me

Reader Root Hog Or Die informed me about the version by Rutherford and Foster, which I covered in an earlier posting. He also mentioned "J.E. Mainer and his Mountaineers (pictured here), of North Carolina, who did a version of 'Let Her Go, God Bless Her,' from 1935, that also bore the 'Sometimes I live in the country ...' verse, but otherwise employed all different - although equally common - floating verses."

One of those "floating verses" again includes mention of the ocean:

She may ramble on boats on the ocean
She may ramble on boats on the sea
She may travel this wide world all over
But she'll never find a friend like me

According to liner notes for the JSP CD J.E. Mainer - The Early Years, as a teenager Mainer labored in the cotton mills. He was an experienced banjo player, but one day watched a man playing fiddle while leaning against a telegraph pole at a railway crossing. As he walked across the track, the man was hit by an incoming train. Mainer returned to the scene that evening to find the broken fiddle lying in a ditch. He got it repaired and learned to play it - that might be the same fiddle he's holding in this photograph. Fiddle, guitars and banjo - those are the Mainer Mountaineer instruments. Mainer's fiddle playing is one of the highlights of "Let Her Go, God Bless Her."

Blind Willie McTell and the authorship of Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues

2009-06-26T00:11:00.012-04:00

Last November, shortly after we finally published I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, the remarkable Rob Walker posted the first part of a five part interview with me on his blog NoNotes. Those interviews appeared intermittently on his site until January of this year. The interviews cover a lot of territory, from Irving Mills to John and Alan Lomax. The first of them centered on Blind Willie McTell and his famous song "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues."

Q: One of your many original discoveries is that “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues” is not, as I among many others had assumed, Blind Willie McTell’s re-invention of SJI. Turns out the way he sings that song is almost identical to the way Porter Grainger wrote it years earlier. How did you make that particular discovery?

A: It was a real shock to me when I found out about the earlier versions of Crapshooters’ Blues, Rob, but in retrospect it’s surprising that this is not generally known. I assume part of the reason is that McTell was very convincing when he said to John Lomax on a 1940 recording, “This is a song that I wrote myself . . .” and then in a 1956 recording, to Ed Rhodes, “I started writing this song in twenty-nine, tho’ I didn’t finish it — I didn’t finish it until 1932 . . .” In other words, there is no reason to look for a song’s composer if we know who the composer is.

The first book that I wrote about “St. James Infirmary,” A Rake’s Progress, made the assumption that McTell was completely responsible for “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues.” In fact, the entire history of “St. James Infirmary” as we know it is rife with incorrect assumptions. In the first months after I had finished A Rake’s Progress I discovered that much of what I had written was incorrect. That book followed the well-trodden path, but as I looked more closely at the “facts,” the tale started to unravel. Realizing that one can accept nothing on assumption, I started to reinvestigate the history of the song and rewrite the book. In part, I Went Down to St. James Infirmary is an attempt to correct the record — to place the song in a more accurate historical context.

And so, in this second phase of research, nothing was taken for granted. If I read, for instance, that Irving Mills was born on such-and-such a date, I checked the census records. Regarding the origins of “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues” the information has been fairly easily available since the mid-nineties. In 1990 the Document record label was created by Johann Ferdinand Parth, with the notion of reproducing the complete recorded output of blues and gospel singers from the late 19th century to the early 1940s. This was an immense project to be sure, but by 1995 two of the CDs Document released contained versions of “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues” that had been recorded in 1927. This was two years before McTell claimed he started writing the song, thirteen years before he first recorded it.

These artists remain pretty obscure even today, though, and are unlikely to enter the collections of people interested in the likes of McTell, Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson and so on. Some listeners might even consider them to be jazz songs. I think the jazz folk and the blues folk don’t cross into each other’s territory that often — which is odd, seeing as it was all mixed together in a bubbling gumbo at the beginning of time, in the 1920s.

Anyway, I actually found one or two of these old recordings on the jazz site www.redhotjazz.com. In the process of checking all my “facts,” I entered “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues” in their search box and was given a list of artists to search including Ma Rainey, Lucille Bogan, Ida Cox and a host of others who never recorded the song. But eventually it turned up, as did the name of the original composer. As you know, Rob, Porter Grainger is an interesting character. He’s one of those people who have almost been rejected by history, but about whom small scraps of information can still be found. But there’s very little out there. I think the bit I wrote about him in I Went Down to St. James Infirmary triples what was previously known about Grainger.

When I learned about the authorship of “Crapshooter’s Blues” I was excited, of course. But I was simultaneously dismayed. By all reports, McTell was an honest, bright, and well-intentioned man. He did not, however, write that song, and yet he was adamant that he did. This symbolically underscores the relationship we have with everything of potentially commercial value. If something — be it an object, an idea, or a song — can be “owned,” it can be sold. The incessant flogging of songs, particularly when the song grew of its own accord, emerging out of the earth, seems wrong. If enough people can be made interested in something, it’s worth selling. Often it’s worth stealing. And that leaves me wondering if that’s just the way we are, or have we somehow lost our way?

One more "Let Her Go" lyric

2009-06-03T23:31:00.012-04:00

Over the past couple of months we have looked at several turn-of-the-twentieth-century songs that contain the infamous "Let her go, God bless her" lyric. Here's one more. (Many thanks to Root Hog or Die for telling me about this one!)

In 1929 the fiddler Leonard Rutherford and the guitarist/singer John D. Foster teamed up to record a handful of tunes for Gennett Records. One of those songs bumps into "St. James Infirmary" at least a couple of times.

The chorus of "Let Her Go, I'll Meet Her" sounds familiar:

Let her go, go, I'll meet her
Let her go, go, I'll meet her
Let her go, go, God bless her so
She is mine wherever she may be

The song is also one of the few that reflect the odd sailor verse that appears now and again in versions of SJI. Mattie Hite, for instance, phrased it like this:

I may be killed on the ocean
I may be killed by a cannonball
But let me tell you buddy
That a woman was the cause of it all

The Rutherford & Foster variation puts it like this:

I have a ship on the ocean
A boat that sails on the sea

A pretty girl that lives in the country, boys
Has sure made a fool out of me

Admittedly, those are fairly far apart, but close enough to be entered into the list of possible influences in the early evolution of "St. James Infirmary."

As with the Louvin Brothers version (see below), "Let Her Go, I'll Meet Her" contains the "Sometimes I live in the country" verse which is most famous as part of Leadbelly's "Goodnight, Irene."

To hear this song click on: Let Her Go, I'll Meet Her

Lyrics to "Let Her Go, I'll Meet Her"

2009-06-03T23:30:00.003-04:00

LET HER GO, I'LL MEET HER
- Recorded by Rutherford and Foster, 1929

Oh where did you stay last night
Yes, and the night before
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines
And shivered when the cold wind blew

Let her go, go, I’ll meet her
Let her go, go , I’ll meet her
Let her go, go , God bless her so
She is mine wherever she may be

Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I take a fool notion like this
To jump in the river and drown

Let her go, go, I’ll meet her
Let her go, go , I’ll meet her
Let her go, go , God bless her so
She is mine wherever she may be

I have a ship on the ocean
A boat that sails on the sea
A pretty girl that lives in the country, boys
Has sure made a fool out of me

Let her go, go, I’ll meet her
Let her go, go , I’ll meet her
Let her go, go , God bless her so
She is mine wherever she may be

The Carl Sandburg version - What did it sound like?

2009-04-16T22:22:00.011-04:00

In recent posts we have seen that bits of the "St. James Infirmary" lyric can be found in songs from as far back as 1909. The earliest evidence of the written music, though, is from Carl Sandburg's 1927 collection of American folk songs, The American Songbag.

By 1929 - after Louis Armstrong became the third person to record the song (preceded by Fess Williams and Buell Kazee) the song had crystallized into a bluesy melody with a fox trot rhythm. But what did it sound like to the people who sent the song to Carl Sandburg?

This afternoon, with my digital reorder in hand, I asked Bill to play the Sandburg version on an electric keyboard. What I have posted here is only sixteen seconds long, but the song is basically that sixteen seconds repeated over and over again, perhaps with variations. Some think of it as repeated choruses, others as "one little rhythmic verse and a series of endless words." So, there is enough music in these few seconds to let us know how the entire song sounded to Sandburg and his song-collecting collaborators.

To hear this sample of the music for Sandburg's version of the song from "The American Songbag" click on: Those Gambler's Blues. And . . . Bill, many thanks for doing this!

"Let Her Go, God Bless Her" mp3 - Willie Trice

2009-04-10T00:04:00.006-04:00

Willie (or Welly, depending upon your source) Trice made two recordings under his own name in 1937, and then not again until 1970. His take on the "Let Her Go" theme is from 1937, with both he and his brother Richard playing guitars.

Document Records had a CD called Carolina Blues (1937-1947) that featured a couple of songs, including this one, by "Welly" Trice - but that's a rare find nowadays. The four disk Blind Boy Fuller Volume 2 from JSP records features the two songs by Welly and eight by Richard Trice.

Although the recording quality is good, the lyrics can be difficult to make out. One verse, for instance, sounds something like, "Oh Scarbird wants your body / And Megalon wants it too / Oh Scarbird turned his long-headed since / She was gone and she won't come back." If you can make more sense of this, please drop me a line.

To hear this song, click on Let Her Go, God Bless Her.

"Let Her Go, God Bless Her" mp3 - the Louvin Brothers

2009-04-08T00:06:00.008-04:00

This is a bit of fun. The Louvin Brothers once recorded a song called "Let Her Go, God Bless Her." It's from a 1956 album titled Tragic Songs of Life, and completely different from the song posted above. From some of the recent posts here, one gets the impression that the "Let Her Go" chorus from "St. James Infirmary" served as the structural cornerstone for a number of songs.

Well, that SJI chorus is here in full, and you will also recognize, unchanged, a verse from Leadbelly's "Good Night, Irene."

This is an infectious little ditty. To hear this song click on: Let Her Go, God Bless Her.

Carl "Deacon" Moore - "A Woman Gets Tired" mp3 - and Margie Moore turns 93!

2009-04-06T21:57:00.019-04:00

A recent photograph of Marjorie Moore, with her daughter Carol

As readers of this blog, or of the book, know - Carl Moore was credited as co-composer of "Gambler's Blues" when it was recorded by Fess Williams in 1927. "Gambler's Blues" would soon become known as "St. James Infirmary" - and credit for authorship would change; first to Don Redman, and then to Joe Primrose.

But Carl Moore (along with Phil Baxter) was the first of these. He is one of the most interesting of the characters that I explore in I Went Down to St. James Infirmary. After many years as a big band leader - and dapper, tuxedoed, comical hillbilly hick - he became one of the first (and one of the most popular) country music djs. Although he retired in 1969, Dave Sichak's website Hillbilly-Music dawt com announced that in 2008 Carl "Squeakin' Deacon" Moore had the most visited page of the many disk jockeys the site features.

Carl Moore was born in Paragould, Arkansas in 1902. He died in

Huntington Beach, California, in 1985. I telephoned his wife, the lovely Margie Moore, a few days ago. She celebrated her 93rd birthday this past weekend!

Happy Birthday Marjorie!!

In celebration of Margie's birthday, I am posting the fourth - and last - song of Carl's complete recorded output. Much of Carl's inspiration came from the vaudeville and minstrel stages, and this song - written by Paul Carter and C.H. Barker (who are today as obscure as songwriters can get) - was popular on vaudeville. Deacon drawls, the orchestra swings.

To hear this song, click on: A Woman Gets Tired. Be warned that a few seconds in it might sound like the recording skips a beat. I edited the file a bit in order to removed a loud click.

New book review in "penguin eggs"

2009-04-06T21:44:00.011-04:00

The Canadian magazine devoted to folk and roots music, penguin eggs, publishes four times a year. The spring issue has just been delivered to stores, and contains a review of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary.

I consider penguin eggs to be one of the best magazines of its type, and am flattered that they chose to review my book. Here is an excerpt:

“[I Went Down to St James Infirmary] is a fascinating study and anyone who has an interest … in the way songs evolve and are passed along through history will find it an utterly compelling read. This critic confesses to a weakness for this type of book and devoured it with relish over a few days, though it will retain a favourtie place in his library and remain a reference for years to come.” — Barry Hammond, Penguin Eggs, Spring 2009

The complete review can be read here: Penguin Eggs book review.

The Old, Weird America - The much expanded Harry Smith anthology

2009-03-29T23:28:00.012-04:00

I found this blog thanks to The Celestial Monochord.

The blog is called The Old, Weird America: My Exploration of Harry Smith's Anthology. The writer, who seems to be anonymous, has set him/herself the task of examining all the songs in the Harry Smith Anthology and providing:

1. commentary on each song
2. for each performer on the anthology, files of other songs he/she/they recorded

3. files of other variations of the song being discussed

4. other things

As there are something like 84 tracks on the anthology, this is quite a task. Still, the first 18 songs have been discussed already - pretty good going, as the project only came online in November 2008.

The most recent post is all about "Gonna Die with a Hammer in My Hand" (aka "John Henry") by The Williamson Brothers & Curry. Our ambitious blogger discusses the performers, offers the few recordings they made, gives links to other sites that discuss the song, offers 100 variations on "John Henry," and even posts some video.

This is really important stuff. Congratulations to The Old Weird America!

Addendum: I have just found out that the author of the blog The Old, Weird America is a fellow called Gadaya. He is actually quite active on the web, including this Youtube Channel in which you can watch/hear him perform a ton of songs like "Casey Jones," "Worried Man Blues," "Barbara Allen" and so on. All of these he does very well indeed, accompanying himself on guitar, banjo ukelele . . . Gadaya lives in France. And while one would think that his involvement in American roots music is large enough a bite for any one man, his blog "The World's Jukebox" shows him casting his net about as wide as anyone can.

"Old Time Gambler's Song" - St. James Infirmary in 1926.

2009-03-22T14:47:00.009-04:00

At the suggestion of John Garst (see yesterday's post) I searched for a copy of Songs of the Cowboys. The original edition, by Jack Thorp, was published in 1908. It was a mere 50 pages long, consisting of 23 cowboy songs. That edition contained a version of "Cow Boy's Lament" (aka "Streets of Laredo") that I had not encountered before:

My curse let it rest, let it rest on the fair one

Who drove me from friends that I loved and from home

Who told me she loved me, just to deceive me

My curse rest upon her, wherever she roam.

In this 'new' (1966) edition, Austin and Alta Fife elaborated on the original book, providing commentary and additional variations for each of the songs Thorp published. This edition is almost 350 pages long.

Within the chapter on "Cow Boy's Lament" is a song that I don't think really belongs there, but which is of great interest to me. By this time it had become a common assumption that there was a direct link between "The Unfortunate Rake," "Streets of Laredo," and "St. James Infirmary." And so we find a song called "Old Time Gambler's Song," with a lyric very close to - and very different from - the "St. James Infirmary" that has been popular from 1928 to the present.

One thing that intrigues me about "St. James Infirmary" is the relative rarity of alternate versions. I think this was one of the effects of Irving Mills securing copyright for the song. Because of legal restrictions, and of the immense popularity of the early recorded version, those alternate variations fell into disuse. This song was sent by Terence McKay to Robert Winslow Gordon in a letter dated April 5, 1926. Gordon was a song collector who would, two years later, found the American Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress.

Of the versions of SJI that we know, several refer to dying on the ocean, being killed by a cannonball. This song offers a more reasonable "I may die out on the ocean, be shot down in a gambling house brawl." The rest of the lyric is equally interesting.

Lyrics to "Old Time Gambler's Song"

2009-03-22T14:31:00.005-04:00

OLD TIME GAMBLER'S SONG

I dreamed I went down to St. James Infirmary

Thought I saw my baby lying there;

Laid out on a clean white table,

So pale and yet so fair.

If she's gone, let her go, God bless her,

For she's mine wherever she may be;

You may search this wide world over

You'll never find another pal such as she

I may die out on the ocean

Be shot down in a gambling house brawl;

But if you follow me to the end of my story

You'll find a blonde was the cause of it all

When I die just bury me in a box back suit,

Blue shirt, roller hat, pair of shoes with toes so tall;

Put whiskey in my coffin, deck of cards in my hand;

Don't let them weep and wail, don't let them moan at all.

Put marihuana in my coffin,

Smoke it as you carry me along;

Take even rolling crap shooters for pall bearers,

Coke sniffers to sing my funeral song.

Put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch charm

So the boys'll all know I'm standing pat;

Put ice on my feet, for in that place where I'm going

I won't even be cool with that.

Just carve it on my tombstone

In letters bold and black,

"Here lies an old time gambler,

Pray God won't you please bring him back!"

Let her go, God bless her - dated 1909

2009-03-21T23:38:00.007-04:00

I've had a number of conversations in the past about those lines from St. James Infirmary, "Let her go, let her go God bless her . . ." and so on. They combine with the rest of the song to tell a very strange story. Where did these words come from, at what point did they enter the song? Were they original sentiments, placed there deliberately, or imported from elsewhere as the song evolved?

John Garst is an organic chemist and amateur folklorist, professor emeritus at the University of Georgia. He has recently (and very generously) sent me information about several songs that we shall discuss in upcoming posts, but I wanted to share this lyric as soon as I could.

John tells me that this song, "She's Gone, Let Her Go" comes from the Song Book of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, dated 1909. I'm not sure we could find a more Caucasian collection of people. There is no music, but here are the lyrics:

SHE'S GONE, LET HER GO

They say true love is a blessing,
But the blessing I never could see,
For the only girl I ever loved
Has done gone back on me.

Chorus.

She's gone, let her go, God bless her,
For she's mine wherever she may be,
You may roam this wide world all over,
But you'll never find a friend like me.

There may be a change in the weather,
There may be a change in the sea,
There may be a change all over,
But there'll never be a change in me.

It's easy to think of this as the likely inspiration for the song discussed in the entry below.

"God Bless Her" - Echoes of SJI in a WW1 song

2009-03-21T00:31:00.008-04:00

Buried on the 348th page of American Air Service historian Edgar S. Gorrell's book Gorrell's History of the American Expeditionary Forces Air Service, 1917-1919 (stored at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration - NARA) is a song with some resemblance to "St. James Infirmary." Gorrell assembled a few pages of songs enjoyed by the World War One airmen. These words introduce this section of the document (obviously written by someone with less than expert proficiency on a typewriter):

"One of the pleasantest recollections which the officers of the Ninetieth will carry with them from France back to the States is of the convivial evenings spent in the mess hall after the dinnerplates had been removed, cigarettes and Pierson's cigars lighted, and the cares of the day forgotten. With Conover at the head of the table leading the songs, assisted by Rohrer's dramatic tenor and Lakes melodious bass, the hours passed quickly. Sweethearts gone but not forgotten and the ties which bound us to the Ninetieth were the favorite but by no means the exclusive themes of our songs.

"We were particularly fortunate in having not only a glee club of such high ability, but also writers of such merit as Capt. Schauffler and Harvey Conover proved to be. Yet this collection does not pretend to be comprised of exclusively original songs. We have disregarded all copyright laws both as to words and music. For some of our songs we owe a debt of gratitude to the Ambulance Corps. Others will be recognized as mere naked parodies on well-known college songs. Our object has been merely to make a collection which would in future years refresh our memories of those merry evenings at Souilly and Bethelainville, and incidentally preserve from oblivion the genius of our aviator poets."

The song, "God Bless Her" looks as if it had been cobbled together, perhaps using the refrain of "St. James Infirmary" as its inspiration. This is one of the few concrete references to SJI that precede the 1920s. I am convinced there were many variations about, some of them probably quite daring - but these fell by the wayside, forgotten, after Irving Mills secured the copyright.

Lyrics to "God Bless Her"

2009-03-21T00:13:00.010-04:00

GOD BLESS HER

Oh she turned me down last summer
For she said she didn't love me anymore;
But now she has written that she'll be my wife
An I've gone and joined the Flying Corps.

She has gone, let her go, God Bless her

She is mine wherever she may be

She may search this wide world over
But she'll never find another like me.

Oh there may come a change in the weather
And there may come a change in the sea.
And there may come a change all over
But there will never come a change in me.

She has gone, let her go, God Bless her.

She is mine wherever she may be

She may search this wide world over
But she'll have to fly to France to catch me.

Oh I've looked at the girls in New York
In London and gay Paris
And there’s one conclusion that I have got
There are other little fishes in the sea.

She has gone, let her go, God Bless her

She is mine wherever she may be

She wanted to marry a tin soldier

But a home-guard I never would be.

WFHB Community Radio - yet again!

2009-03-14T23:30:00.009-04:00

I can't believe I'm entering three posts in a row about WFHB, in Bloomington, Indiana. This must be quite the happening community radio station.

I have just heard that folklorist Margaret Lynn Steiner will be broadcasting on Tuesday, March 17th - St. Patrick's Day - from 9 to 11 pm (Eastern time). She says that her program will be split between songs from Northern Ireland (where I was born) and songs from Miramichi, New Brunswick (near where my brother lives). Of the former Margaret says, "Newtownbutler, in Co. Fernmanagh, Northern Ireland, had a very active living song tradition, certainly in the late 1970's. Local songs abounded, centering around hunting, Gaelic football, and cockfighting, as well as songs celebrating the local topography, etc. All I had to do was walk into McQuillan's Pub, and I could just happen on a 'singsong.'"

Regarding Miramichi, Ms. Steiner has been attending their folksong festival since 1986. This is the oldest folk music festival in Canada. Dating from 1958 it has the primary function of preserving traditional songs and culture. One of the treasures of Miramichi has been Wilmot MacDonald, a singer with an impressive store of old songs - and who is featured on a 1962 Smithsonian recording. Margaret Steiner contributed to a CD and book about MacDonald, that is available from the Maine Folklife Center, University of Maine.

Margaret Lynn Steiner: "Edward D. (Sandy Ives) has done a lot of work on the English-language tradition, especially focusing on 19th-century folk poets such as Larry Gorman and Joe Scott. Ronald Labelle, of the University of Moncton, has worked a lot with the Francophone tradition, and I've been working with singers who are bilingual and bicultural and looking at how they juggle their biculturalism musically."

Folklorists are important people. Song collecting is important work. In this - as Lucas Gonze puts it - age of copyright extremism, we need to broaden our base of inspiration. We need to be reminded that songs can be living things with a vitality and meaningfulness that, in terms of cultural and personal value, far outstrips the monetary lifespan of Mickey Mouse.

So, that's WFHB on Tuesday, March 17th, from 9 to 11 in the evening, Eastern time. I shall be scheduling an audio capture, so I can load it onto my iPod.

More about Border Radio on WFHB - Live!

2009-03-14T10:31:00.012-04:00

The above image is from the web site of Bloomington, Indiana's Buskirk-Chumley Theater. This historic building will be the site for WFHB's March 27th live broadcast after the style of Border Radio - of interest here because of a) its historical context and b) it promises the first live performance after the style of Carl "Deacon" Moore in perhaps 70 years.

I was doing a bit of surfing this morning, and noticed that WFHB's home page had added the following notice:

WFHB holds live radio show at Buskirk-Chumley Theater March 27th

Remember the days when the radio announcer would say "Who's this on the Wolfman telephone?" or "Put your hands on the radio to feel the power of His love..."? Then you'll want to mark the date for WFHB's Spring Variety Show on Friday, March 27th at the historic Buskirk-Chumley Theater in downtown Bloomington. Local and regional musical acts, radio skits, live sound effects and more will transport you back to an earlier age when preachers, psychics, and purveyors of snake oil prevailed.

There is more detail here.

So, if you happen to live nearby, or are visiting Bloomington, Indiana, the live show is from 8 to 10 pm on March 27th. Those of us further away can catch it via their live feed at www.wfhb.org.

Coming soon: Border Radio - live feed - including Carl "Deacon" Moore!

2009-03-09T00:21:00.007-04:00

I have been exchanging emails with Mike Kelsey, dj of a really interesting radio show at the WFHB community radio station in Bloomington, Indiana.

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the name Carl "Deacon" Moore - and probably with the recordings I have posted here. Recently Mike played some of the Carl Moore records on his show - this is probably the first time they've been heard in broadcast since sometime in the 1930s! But later this month he will be doing something even more exciting!

Mark your calendars for Friday March 27th, between 8 and 10 pm Eastern Time. Turn your digital dial to http://www.wfhb.org/ for a live broadcast patterned after the Border Radio of the 1930s and 1940s. Among the songs to be broadcast will be live covers of at least one of the Moore songs. What will it be? "Evolution Mama?" "Nobody Knows Where She's Gone?" Place your bets at the window.

There are a number of books about Border Radio, but one in particular manages to sum it up nicely in its subtitle: "Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves." The broadcast promises to be a real treat so, see you there!

ps There is a good chance that Carl's wife, the vivacious 92 year-old Marjorie Moore, will be listening in, too.

Jack Shea revisited - or should that be Irving Kaufman?

2009-03-03T19:08:00.020-05:00

Back on November 23rd, 2008 I posted an article about Jack Shea, with an mp3 of him singing the Irving Mills/Cliff Friend song "Lovesick Blues" in 1922. This afternoon I received a note from Anonymous, declaring "Say, that's the prolific Irving Kaufman in a bluesy frame of mind as 'Jack Shea'."

Ah, the history of popular music does have its share of mysteries - and it seems plausible that Jack Shea never existed.

Irving (of the singing brothers Phillip, Jack, and Irving Kaufman) frequently recorded under aliases, with the agreement of his contracting record companies. Brian Rust, who listed only a handful of records he deemed of interest to jazz enthusiasts, included the aliases of Billy Clark, Sammy Burton, Harry Topping, Tom Nevill, Arthur Holt, Charles Dickson, Noel Taylor, and Brian Watt.

Kaufman was a prolific singer and performer, who made his first record in 1914 and his last record in 1974, when he was 84 years old. A good brief biography can be found on Tim Gracyk's Phonographs.

I did read a list of pseudonyms that claimed Jack Kaufman (Irving's brother) was Jack Shea. But others feel that Shea's intonation is more reminiscent of Irving's voice. Is the jury still out on the true identity of Jack Shea - or is Irving Kaufman's the voice we hear on that 1922 recording?

More gems from Lefty's Attic

2009-03-01T09:58:00.013-05:00

We've finally finished much of the work on the photo website (you can see that here, although it has nothing to do with St. James Infirmary) and so here's another post. I had been planning something about the song collector Dorothy Scarborough, but in the meantime came across this.

By way of explanation, we tend to think first of John and Alan Lomax when we consider song collectors. There were others who preceded them - in North America these include Harry Odum and Dorothy Scarborough. Scarborough's 1925 On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs includes a song that contains a verse with the familiar, "Let her go, let her go / May God bless her, wherever she may be." Her book is a fascinating document, as she comments on the songs and her relationship to them - and interesting in that many of the "Negro songs" she includes obviously came from the minstrel stage.

And then we have Ralph Peer. Peer was a businessman, with little love for the types of songs he was hunting. Still, he went in search of talent, and was responsible for discovering such luminaries as The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. The records he made with them were profit-seeking ventures, and so we generally don't include them in the canon of discovered folk songs; we don't see them as equally representative of the non-commercial music of the period.

But here - now, this is a different story. When auditioning for Peer, the musicians would bring their own songs - the stuff they were playing and singing at home, or at the village barn dances. Eventually Peer would send A.P. Carter in search of Appalachian folk songs that he could "modify" and thereby declare as original compositions (all the better to copyright, my dear). But our friend, Lonesome Lefty, has made available some of the original 1927 Bristol Session recordings. Here are The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, The Tenneva Ramblers (Rodgers' band - they split up while arguing about auditioning for Peer), Ernest Stoneman and others, some of whom never recorded again. The sound quality is good, and the download includes the record covers and liner notes. A wonderful find - thanks, Lefty! You can download that album here.

(If you are interested in more detail about these sessions, I can recommend "The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music," published in 2005. Other highly readable resources include Nolan Porterfield's Jimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of America's Blue Yodeler and Mark Zwonitzer's Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music.)

Carl "Deacon" Moore - "Waiting for the Evening Mail" MP3

2009-02-04T23:54:00.007-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted to the site. I've been involved in a number of projects (that include working on a photo web site - although, truth be told, Pam has been doing most of that).

Anyway, we're long past due for another Carl "Deacon" Moore song. Like the others he made, Waiting for the Evening Mail (Sitting on the Inside Looking Outside) was recorded for Decca in 1938. Originally written by Tin Pan Alley composer Billy Baskette, it was a popular ditty recorded by the likes of Bing Crosby and Al Jolson. This is a tragi-comical song, and Moore does it well. To hear the song, click on: Waiting for the Evening Mail.

My interview with Rob Walker on NOnotes

2009-01-17T19:42:00.010-05:00

Well, the NOnotes interview has now been posted - in five parts!

The first part can be found here - mostly discussing "Dyin Crapshooter's Blues"

The second part can be found here - regarding AL Lloyd, John and Alan Lomax, The Unfortunate Rake, Iron Head Baker, Leadbelly . . .

The third part can be found here - regarding how Redman brought the song to Armstrong in Chicago

The fourth part can be found here - legal issues and early recordings

The fifth part can be found here - "St. James Infirmary" goes to court

Rob is, to put it mildly, an SJI enthusiast. His questions were probing, a challenge and a delight to answer.

If you are among the few who find this sort of stuff interesting, there's more in the book!

copyright vs public domain and the web

2009-01-14T20:27:00.012-05:00

I love bumping into sites like this. How can we share our love of music when reproducing it - perhaps by posting our own rendition of, say, a Beatles song - can leave us open to legal challenges and/or performance charges? Lucas Gonze is obviously a man very familiar with the Internet, and too familiar with the problems inherent in "this era of copyright extremism" which, he goes on to explain in a podcast on the Digital Media Insider site (also available, btw, at iTunes), "is just going to wipe out a lot of those inputs. I don't think that people are going to play Beatles songs. I think the Beatles are going to disappear from memory - because they're going to be locked away. You really can't get to the stuff. And instead the music that was available for free use, that was under a Creative Commons license, that was very clearly in the public domain, or that was made before the recording era, I think that's what people will be using. They will be doing the five trillionth cover of 'Home On The Range' instead of a much better song, like 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,' because that's what's in the culture, and passing back and forth references to the same material but used in different ways. That's what you're doing when you're making cultural artifacts. I think people will look back at these lost items and say, 'These were such great songs! What happened to them?'"

Soup Greens is devoted to music that is clearly in the public domain. But it goes deeper than that, directly addressing the issue of how music copyright affects us in everyday life. While looking at his site, make sure to visit the menu item "Just my music" - here's Lucas and his guitars, doing some fine renditions of songs that are firmly esconsced in the public domain.

Emmett Miller - clarinet-voiced singer of Lovesick Blues

2009-01-11T00:36:00.021-05:00

The first song Irving Mills was credited with writing was "Lovesick Blues." First recorded in 1922, Emmett Miller's 1928 version gave it the shape we recognize today - thanks, that is, to Hank Williams' 1949 rendition.

When Miller's record was released, though, it was the flip side, "I Ain't Got Nobody," that received most of the airplay. The poster below is advertising another record Miller released at about the same time, "A Thousand Frogs Sitting on a Log." You might think that's an odd song title, and you'd be right; this was a comedy skit based on the topic of elocution. According to Nick Tosches in his book about Miller, "Where Dead Voices Gather," the skit served as a running gag throughout his stage show. From a newspaper article quoted by Tosches: "Early in the evening the Interlocutor attempted to recite something about a 'thousand frogs on a log.' Instantly Emmett was growling in disgust, 'Can't get no thousand frogs on no log ...' Finally, the mention of 'a thousand frogs on a log' was sufficient almost to throw the audience into paroxysms of laughter."

Here, from a North Carolina Newspaper, is a 1928 advertisement for the thousand frogs. You can hear this performance via a download at the website "Western Swing on 78." That download will actually net 23 Miller recordings, about half his total output. The other half can be found here. Among these recordings, by the way, are both the 1925 and the 1928 versions of "Lovesick Blues." The earlier one, with piano accompaniment only, had long been assumed lost. This earlier version of the song sounds unformed to me - as if Miller had not yet imposed his own stamp on it.

Six of those MP3 files yield "The OKeh Medicine Show" - about eighteen minutes of a recorded recreation of medicine show skits and music, in which Miller is but one of the performers. Others included Fiddlin' John Carson, his daughter Moonshine Kate, and Frank Hutchison (a slide-guitar playing, blues singing ex-miner who recorded 32 song between 1929 and 1932). As you can see, Miller was the featured personality in an advertisement for the record.

Emmett Miller - minstrel math

2009-01-11T00:26:00.005-05:00

Emmett Miller appeared in a 1951 film, "Yes Sir, Mr. Bones." An hour long, it tells the tale of a young boy who strays into a retirement home for elderly minstrel performers. Flashbacks allow the film (which actually exists on DVD) to recreate some of the old skits, including this excerpt from YouTube. Here Emmett Miller, now in his 50s and wearing his trademark bowler hat, gives a lesson in blackboard logic.

St. James Infirmary piano sheet music

2008-12-29T00:26:00.006-05:00

I scanned this sheet music from an orchestral score, first published in 1929 by Mills Music, Inc. Clicking on the score should open a larger image, in which the notes can be clearly read.

SJI and The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong

2008-12-13T20:47:00.005-05:00

Here's a very interesting (and long) essay about Louis Armstrong and his versions of "St. James Infirmary." I accidentally bumped into this blog on my way elsewhere. I'm flattered that this gentleman, Ricky Riccardi, refers to this humble site - and excited about the information he provides. Among the treats to be found here is a radio broadcast in which you can listen to Louis talk about Don Redman, Jack Teagarden, and "St. James Infirmary."

All this is a prelude to Mr. Riccardi's upcoming (2010) book about Armstrong's later years. Sounds like it will be well worth keeping an eye open for.

Jelly Roll Morton - The Complete Library of Congress Recordings

2008-12-04T19:42:00.020-05:00

An incredible collection of eight CDs is available from Rounder Records: Jelly Roll Morton - The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax. Even though there is nothing about "St. James Infirmary" to be found here, this collection is an important - and fascinating - look at music history. I first heard about the collection on Rob Walker's website, NOnotes. Back in 2006 Walker wrote a really interesting series of essays about this set, eight postings over a period of two months. His first one looked at Morton's comments on - a favourite topic of mine - copyright.

I bought this set last summer. Pam and I had spent some time traveling through southern Saskatchewan and Alberta with our friend James, photographing the incredible landscape of these prairie provinces. During a visit to Edmonton I saw this boxed set in the window of a second-hand record store and could not resist it. I had not long before finished reading Marybeth Hamilton's thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating book, In Search of the Blues. In one chapter Hamilton detailed the events leading up to Lomax's recording sessions with Morton, and turned it into a very interesting tale.

In 1937 Morton was living in Washington, D.C. His music was out of fashion, he'd been forgotten, and his records were no longer listened to; they were essentially worthless. Except to record collectors like Charles Edward Smith and his cronies. One of these cronies, William Russell, nursed ambitions to become a classical composer . . . until he heard his first Morton record. When teaching music composition to a high school class, Russell asked students to bring in records from home. Expecting to easily demonstrate the superiority of classical European music, he was not anticipating the music of Jelly Roll Morton. "From the first bars Russell was hooked. The sheer complexity of the music was what was most immediately striking - the dazzling, rich, polyphonic rhythms, as intricate as anything Arnold Schoenberg had devised but even more vital and free." What Russell was hearing "was so much more imaginative, so much more sophisticated, than anything he could possibly write." Russell became a record collector, hunting for Morton's recordings wherever he could find them.

Shortly after moving to Washington, D.C., Smith entered a dilapidated building on the top floor of which there "was a large, dingy room; the dank, chill air was barely affected by the coal-black iron stove. Only the bar, the jukebox and the battered piano indicated that it was a nightclub . . ." Morton was the bartender as well as the entertainment. He was ill but he could still play with fire. Smith and his friends became regulars at the club, and it was Smith who later introduced Lomax to Morton. Lomax was interested enough to book time at the Library of Congress for some recording sessions over several weeks in 1938. All Lomax had to do was ask a question and Morton, sitting at the piano, responded with a torrent of music and words that seemed inexhaustible. Tales of musicians and hucksters, stories fluid with sentiment or thick with obscenity; a glorious history told in words and music. It's as interesting listening to Morton talk as it is listening to him sing and play piano.

The content of these complete recordings was once the stuff of legend . . . until Rounder Records released this magnificently packaged set in 2006.

Jack Shea recording from 1922 - Lovesick Blues mp3

2008-11-23T11:27:00.013-05:00

Readers of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary know that the first song of his own that Irving Mills (aka Joe Primrose) published was "Lovesick Blues" in 1922. He shared the writing credit with Tin Pan Alley songster Cliff Friend. As you can see on the record label, though, only Cliff Friend's name is printed below the title. Was this a mistake? Or did Mills 'assume' partial ownership later that year?

Jack Shea's was probably the second recording of "Lovesick Blues" (after Elsie Clark's, earlier the same year). This song is much different from the one recorded by the yodelling blackface minstrel Emmett Miller in 1928. It was Miller's recording that inspired Hank Williams, whose version shot to the top of the charts in 1949.

To hear this song, click on: Lovesick Blues.

Interviews on NOnotes

2008-11-20T22:52:00.005-05:00

I am delighted and flattered to report that the esteemed NOnotes is posting a series of interviews with yours truly. Mr. Walker is a canny interviewer; answering his questions has been an enjoyable challenge. Part 1 can be found here and part 2 here.

Lonesome Lefty's Scratchy Attic

2008-11-16T10:45:00.011-05:00

This might seem a bit off the track for this blog, but I just stumbled upon this site. Lonesome Lefty transfers old records to mp3 files, and posts them on his blog.

The first album I saw there was called Music Hall Memories, and features British music hall performances from as early as 1906 (and as recently as 1938). So, this is a kind of roots music and although you won't hear anything resembling "St. James Infirmary" here, you will hear tunes that were enormous influences on British popular music as well as on the music that came from American Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley.

In fact, the second major hit for Irving and Jack Mills' fledgling sheet music business was "Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Sean" - a song that would be very much at home on this collection. The Gallagher and Sean song ensured that Jack and Irving had enough money to continue buying songs, and so probably played a key role in the later drama of SJI.

I have an old 78 of "Mr. Gallagher and Mr Sean," the flip side of Jack Shea's 1922 recording of "Lovesick Blues." It's very scratchy, but I've just purchased an old turntable; my son, Alex, gave me an accessory that will allow me to create mp3 files from those records, and I shall be posting them in the near future.

Highly recommended here is the hilarious 1932 ditty "The Lion and Abert" by Stanley Holloway.

St. James Infirmary trumpet sheet music

2008-11-14T19:56:00.006-05:00

The page of sheet music you see here was scanned from a 1929 orchestral score, published by Gotham Music Service Inc., sole selling agents for Mills Music, Inc., 148-150 W. 46th St., N.Y.C.

Clicking on the image should give you a larger, readable version of the page.

This particular score was almost certainly used by an orchestra of the period. An instruction pencilled in at the bottom of the page tells the player when to "stand up" during the performance.

In this orchestral score, music is included for drums, piano, 1st and 3rd alto saxophones, 2nd tenor saxophone, violin, trombone, 1st and 2nd trumpet, tenor banjo, bass, and 1st violin. The price for the entire score was 50 cents.

Carl "Deacon" Moore - "Nobody Knows Where She's Gone" mp3

2008-11-13T19:24:00.008-05:00

It's time, I think, for another Carl "Deacon" Moore (and his orchestra) song. Like the rest of Moore's entire recorded output, this was recorded for Decca in 1938.

To paraphrase the big band historian Joesph E. Bennett, if one were simply to listen to a Moore performance, one would first hear Deacon's introductory remarks delivered in a broad hillbilly twang - and would expect, upon opening one's eyes, to see a country hick in bib overalls, chewing on a bit of straw. Instead there would stand "a handsome, slender young man immaculately arrayed in a spotless tuxedo, leading an orchestra which was equal in appearance to the most impressive New York ensemble. The band's music was tasteful and modern, with an impressive mix of popular up-tempo numbers and traditional lush ballads, all delivered with an obvious high degree of musicianship."

You can hear all of that in this selection. To listen to this song, click on: Nobody Knows Where She's Gone.

Buying In and the selling of St. James Infirmary

2008-11-02T13:53:00.012-05:00

When Irving Mills gained ownership of "St. James Infirmary" he did everything he could to make it a success. Mills did not expect the song to be more than a novelty hit with a short shelf life, so he saturated the airwaves with it - he wanted to make sure it was heard again and again, so that the song became familiar to as many people as possible. Of course, in the days before television and the Internet, media saturation meant something other than it does now. In the late 1920s radio was immensely popular (although it had been introduced to the general public only a few years earlier); live shows were broadcast from dance halls across the nation. Most households owned a wind-up Victrola or similar record player. (In 1929, the year OKeh released Louis Armstrong's "St. James Infirmary" the Victor Company alone sold 35 million records in the U.S., which had a population of 120 million.) Dance was a major pastime, and dance-halls dotted the landscape.

Mills covered as many bases as he could. He gave orchestra scores to dance bands, free records to radio stations, discounted sheet music to newsstands. Bands he managed released versions of "St. James Infirmary" for both the premium record labels and the budget record labels, so whatever their income level there was probably a version of the song in the buyer's price range. And as you can see in an earlier entry on this blog, newspaper advertisements sometimes made no reference at all to the music, but instead hinted that cool dudes owned this record.

I found myself musing again and again about the selling of SJI when I read Rob Walker's recent book "Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are." Song publicists in the 1920s were a creative bunch, often devising unusual ways of popularizing a product and could, "by all the arts of persuasion, intrigue, bribery, mayhem, malfeasance, cajolery, entreaty, threat, insinuation, persistence and whatever else he has" see to it that the music was heard. While Mills was well ahead of his time in terms of advertising know-how and moxy, he hardly held a candle to the bright lights of today's advertising business.

Rob Walker is, of course, responsible for the remarkable NOnotes website, the best resource for SJI-related material on the web. He is also an authority on consumerism - by which I mean the means whereby we are convinced of the seeming advantage (or necessity) of owning a particular product, taking a particular point of view - and writes a regular column for the New York Times Magazine. I'm an occasional reader of his Murketing blog, where his musings are sometimes nothing short of brilliant.

We think of ourselves as a pretty sophisticated bunch these days. We're savvy to advertising tricks, immune to their various arts of persuasion. I thought of myself this way. Until, that is, I read Buying In. Cultural artifacts like, well, like "St. James Infirmary" should come to us of their own accord, because something about them resonates with our essential selves or with the spirit of the times. "St. James Infirmary" survived, I think, despite the efforts of Irving Mills. These days, though, one can be excused for wondering how much of what we buy into has any real weight outside that of the pen signing the advertising contract. It's good to be aware. This is a good book to read.

Marjorie Moore and "Deacon" Radio, revisited

2008-11-02T00:06:00.012-04:00

Readers of this site will know that Carl Moore is intimately tied to the fascinating history of "St. James Infirmary." I received a telephone call from his wife Marjorie Moore this afternoon. Although we exchanged letters while I was writing I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, this is the first time we've actually spoken to each other. This was an exciting moment, and in celebration I am revisiting one of the earliest posts on this blog.

While Carl Moore was born in 1902 Marjorie Moore, who he married in 1941, was quite a bit younger than him. Margie, now 92, is a warm and energetic woman. About Carl she said, "He was one neat guy - very kind and loving and caring." Whether as a singer and big band leader or as a country music DJ, she says that Carl always had time for his fans. During his later career as a country dj, he hosted an influential amateur show on Sunday mornings. Margie told me that, "After a show people would line up to see him, and he would stay as long as they wanted to talk. He was a down-to-earth guy; he didn't put on airs." When I first wrote to her, asking about SJI, she wrote back, "'St. James Infirmary' is a mystery to me, also. I always understood that Carl wrote the words to it." She also remembered "Carl telling me that someone took several songs to Chicago and sold them but did not put his name on them."

Margie sent me a number of photographs and press clippings, including this photo that I did not include in the book. This is Carl as a California country radio dj "The Squeakin' Deacon."

Moore's first radio job was an early morning show on Cincinnati's WLW radio station. This station was originally built to help sell radios and used such a powerful transmitter that it interfered with Canadian radio signals. From Cincinnati the Moore's moved to St. Louis (where Carl hosted a country show called "The Shady Valley Gang"). By 1947 the Moore's (Carl, Margie, and their daughter Carole) made California their permanent home. The hillbilly persona he adopted in the dance halls of America served him well in the increasingly popular world of country music. It is still possible to see Carl "The Squeakin' Deacon" Moore on some of the Bear Family videos of the 1950s country TV show, Town Hall Party, making brief appearances to tell jokes and advertise his Sunday morning amateur hour. On the August 8th, 1959 show you can not only see the Deacon telling a couple of his jokes, but also watch a 27 year old Johnny Cash doing an impersonation of Elvis Presley.

Dick Robertson - St. James Infirmary mp3

2008-10-27T00:07:00.009-04:00

This is a version of St. James Infirmary that, as far as I know, has never been heard except on the original 78 rpm records. It was made somewhere between late 1929 and late 1930 for Brunswick Records. Dick Robertson, the singer, was very popular in that period and recorded with a variety of bands including Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. It is possible that Irving Mills was his manager for a while, but of that I'm not positive.

If you look closely at the label you will notice that Robertson is referred to as "Comedian With Orchestra." (When Fess Williams performed "Gambler's Blues" in 1927, he was also listed as a Comedian on the record label.) Robertson's delivery might be a little exaggerated, but from my perspective - almost eighty years after the record was made - I don't hear anything that makes me want to chuckle. His take on the song is interesting in that he starts with the complete Armstrong lyric, then he incorporates the changes Mills/Primrose included in his second copyrighted version, and concludes with a verse that is peculiar to this recording. You can hear an mp3 by clicking: Dick Robertson, St. James Infirmary.

Blind Willie McTell bio

2008-10-26T11:22:00.015-04:00

Visitors to this site (and I know there are one or two) might not be aware that Michael Gray recently published a biography of Blind Willie McTell, Hand Me My Travellin’ Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell (Bloomsbury, hardcover, 2007). It has just come out in paperback. Strangely, it is still only available in the UK.

A biography of McTell must have been a real challenge. Information about him has - until now - been uncertain and, depending upon one's source, contradictory. Michael Gray has accomplished a remarkable feat with this book, which will be a valuable and absorbing read for anyone interested in "roots" music, early blues, Blind Willie McTell or "St. James Infirmary." This is an important book about an important musician. The Sunday Times, for one, calls it “Shrewd, lucid and immensely well informed.”

McTell, of course, was responsible for resurrecting the remarkable SJI-influenced "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues." McTell actually did record "St. James Infirmary" - in a small Atlanta record store owned by Ed Rhodes. That was in 1956. Unfortunately the CD, Last Session, is incomplete, and so his rendition is not generally available. (Although in 2004 record producers Laurence Cohn and Marino De Silva teamed up to create a box set of McTell recordings that was to include the complete Ed Rhodes tape, the complete John Lomax recording session, and many other treats. People who got wind of this kept their eyes and ears open through 2004 and 2005 and 2006 . . . the web site finally went down in 2008. There are odd rumours afloat about the cause of the project's failure, but the much anticipated box set is dead - and one wonders when these items will come into the light.)

I ordered my copy of Gray's book from amazon.uk and was impressed by both the final cost and the speed of delivery.

Carl "Deacon" Moore - "Evolution Mama" mp3

2008-10-25T22:51:00.012-04:00

Some of my earlier posts discussed Carl "Deacon" Moore, a fascinating personality who became a central character in my book, I Went Down to St. James Infirmary. Pictured here with his orchestra in 1940, Moore (leaning against the piano) was credited as co-composer on Fess Williams' 1927 recording of "Gambler's Blues." Born and raised in Arkansas, Moore adopted the persona of the hillbilly hick in his performances. His drawling vocalizations contrasted appealingly with the smooth sounds of his orchestra. He made only four records, all during the same session for Decca records on August 9th, 1938. None of his recordings have ever been reproduced since those early 78s. In upcoming posts I shall make these recordings available - here's the first one.

"Evolution Mama" is Moore's strangest record. Referring to the controversy over evolution vs creation ("Evolution Mama, don't you make a monkey out of me") the song was written by Terry Shand . . . according to the credit on Moore's record label, anyway. The song had been recorded perhaps three times between 1925 and 1927, generally credited to Doc Dasher and Eddie Heywood. Since then it has been recorded by the Even Dozen Jug Band in 1964 (credited as a traditional tune).

By clicking on the song title below, you can hear Carl "Deacon" Moore and his orchestra perform "Evolution Mama" - the song is courtesy of Moore's wife, Marjorie Moore, and was transferred to tape for me by the big band historian Joseph E. Bennett.

Lyrics to "Evolution Mama"

2008-10-25T22:50:00.005-04:00

Well old Lucian Burn had a gal, way down in Tennessee
Now, she told Lucian all about evolution
While she was sitting down on his knee
When one fine day she got gay and started steppin’ out
Well sir, then ol’ Lucian started a revolution
And the neighbours heard him shout

He said, Evolution Mama, Evolution Mama
He says, Honey Lamb don’t you make a monkey out of me
'Cause Evolution Mama don’t you think you’ve got me up a tree
I remember the time you had me nice and tame
and I was eating right out of your hand
But some sweet day I’m going to take dead aim
And knock that peanut whistle right off your stand

‘Cause Evolution Mama, sweet smellin’ mama
Listen here while I get you told
This is odd, but you ain’t no organ grinder
And I ain’t a hangin’ on your chain
He says I got me a razor and I got me a gun
And I’m gonna cut you if you stand still
And shoot you if you run

‘Cause Evolution Mama, sweet smellin’ mama
Don’t you make a monkey out of me
Says, I ain’t half man and I ain’t half beast
But I can do you more good than this here store-bought yeast
‘Cause Evolution Mama, sweet smellin’ mama
Don’t you make a monkey out of me

Buell Kazee

2008-10-12T22:31:00.023-04:00

I recently received a letter from Richard Jenkins, who lives in Sheffield, England. Richard is one of those rare souls who has made a study of SJI; he had just finished reading I Went Down to St. James Infirmary and was kind enough to write, "I've really enjoyed it! Brilliant." He then asked, "Where, in the whole saga, would you place 'Gambling Blues,' recorded on 16 Jan 1928 by Buell Kazee, from Eastern Kentucky?"

Buell Kazee is not a name one would easily forget, so I had to admit that I'd never encountered him before. Although that's not quite true. I am very familiar with songs on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music that were performed by Buell: "East Virginia," "The Butcher Boy," "The Wagoner's Lad." I'd never noted his name, though. Thanks to emusic.com I was able to download Gambling Blues and am amazed. This is, lyrically, very similar to the song that Carl Moore (from Arkansas) and Phil Baxter (from Texas) - both white musicians - put their names to and which Fess Williams recorded in March, 1927. Kazee's recording date of January 1928 makes it, chronologically, the second recording in the "St. James Infirmary" canon, effectively moving Louis Armstrong into third place.

Kazee hailed from Eastern Kentucky. For the sake of posterity he transcribed the traditional songs of his family and neighbours, and recorded about fifty of them between 1927 and 1929. His "Gambling Blues," while lyrically similar to "Gambler's Blues" and "St. James Infirmary" has a different melody, a kind of simple rhythmic chant reminiscent of mournful Appalachian ballads.

What does this mean? Certainly it gives credence to the notion that SJI was all over the map in the first decades of the twentieth century. Where did this version spring from, though? Perhaps "St. James Infirmary" was originally a hillbilly song - or came to America from Britain fully formed.

But "crapshooters," "jazz band" - do these sound like lyrics from an indigenous Appalachian song? Also, that sudden change - without transition - between the fourth verse (her funeral) and fifth verse (his funeral) is odd. It's as if the verse that usually starts "When I die I want you to bury me," had been misplaced. Perhaps the song was adopted by Tennessee townsfolk after a minstrel show breezed through the region. Kazee's discography from 1927-1929 contains cowboy songs and original compositions, so he was not recording only regional tunes; perhaps he'd simply picked this up on his travels. Perhaps . . . there could be any number of possibilities. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Lyrics to Kazee's "Gambling Blues"

2008-10-12T22:23:00.009-04:00

I went down to Joe’s barroom
On the corner of the square
A goodly crowd had gathered
And the drinks were flowing there

I sat down by McKinney
His eyes were bloodshot red
He leaned to me and whispered
And this is what he said

I went down to the infirmary
And looked into a window there
Saw my girl stretched on a white bed
So cold, so pale, so fair

Sixteen coal black horses
Hitched to a rubber-tired hack
Took seven pretty girls to the graveyard
Only six of them came back

Six crapshooters for pallbearers
And a chorus girl to sing me a song
Put a jazz band on my hearse top
Let ‘em play as I roll along

And now my story’s ended
Give me one more drink of booze
And I’ll be on my way boys
For I’ve got those gamblin’ blues.

St. James Infirmary, Willy the Weeper, and Minnie the Moocher

2008-10-05T13:59:00.013-04:00

In the early days of his career Cab Calloway used “St. James Infirmary” as his signature song. By 1931 – when he was the house musician at the Cotton Club – he was looking for something new, something a little more original to serve as his theme. His manager Irving Mills, like many of the music makers of the day, owned a copy of Carl Sandburg’s recently published collection of American traditional songs, The American Songbag. He happened upon “Willy the Weeper” and used this as the foundation upon which to build a new song. (You can hear a 1927 recording of "Willy the Weeper" here.)

Willy hailed, probably, from the days of the Wild West – from the days when, as Alan Lomax put it, “taking dope was not regarded as a much more serious habit than drinking or chewing tobacco.” The song developed many variations, most of them adding verses that described further drug-induced dreams. Inevitably, though, Willy wakes up and, weeping, has to return to his mundane life and his mundane job.

Irving Mills claimed he wrote "Minnie the Moocher" himself. He completed it in a couple of hours, using one of the Mills Music house musicians to transcribe the melody. Calloway then, according to a 1933 newspaper interview with Mills, “injected his catching musical personality into the piece.” The song has writing credit to Mills, Clarence Gaskin and Calloway.

Willy was a chimney sweeper. Minnie was a red hot hootchie cootcher. Willy and Minnie were both hopeless addicts and the songs recounted their drug-induced dreams. Willy’s dreams took him to Bulgaria where the queen gave him a car with a diamond headlight and a silver steering wheel. Minnie wound up with the king of Sweden, who gave her a diamond car with a platinum wheel. The queen of Bulgaria had a million dollars in nickels and dimes which she’d counted a million times. The king of Sweden gave Minnie a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes which Minnie sat around and counted a million times.

In both Calloway's 1931 and (especially) 1933 recordings, one listens to the orchestral introduction expecting to hear "St. James Infirmary." But then, as Calloway starts singing, a variation of the earlier "Willy the Weeper" melody emerges. This was a really big hit for Calloway, and other related songs followed in its wake, including: "Minnie the Moocher's Wedding Day," "Kicking the Gong Around" (a euphemism for smoking opium), "Minnie's a Hepcat Now," and "Ghost of Smoky Joe" (Joe was Minnie's boyfriend, who taught her how to kick the gong around).

"The Hi-De-Ho Man" was another song in this Calloway stream - based upon the Hi-De-Ho call and response chorus of "Minnie the Moocher." The audiences loved this. When singing "Minnie the Moocher" Calloway would call out "Hi de hi de hi de hi" and the audience would shout it back; gradually the call and response would become more complicated until Calloway returned to the story. Coincidentally (or not) the earlier "Willy the Weeper" had a call and response chorus of its own.

St. James Infirmary on Bob Dylan's XM Theme Time Radio Hour

2008-09-16T21:31:00.017-04:00

Back in May, 2006, Bob Dylan launched a weekly radio program on XM satellite radio. When Pam and I caught wind of the program, months before the first show aired, we bought an XM receiver. We weren't disappointed. Theme Time Radio can be something of a bonanza for aficionados of early American popular music. While the show leans towards music of the 40s and 50s, Mr. Dylan talks about and plays a considerable amount of music from earlier decades. There aren't many radio programs that can feature Jack Teagarden, Tom Waits, Charlie Poole, Percy Mayfield, Hank Snow, and ZZ Top on the same bill while maintaining a sense of continuity.

It's Dylan's talking that keeps things flowing. Good as his selections are, his patter is often the best thing about the program. He can be thoughtful, serious, self-mocking, sarcastic . . . often very funny. Always reverent. I think of Bob Dylan as one the the great exponents, and authorities, on early American popular music. So it was with some excitement that we listened as his February 20th broadcast veered into a discussion of "St. James Infirmary." The theme for this show was "Doctors" and Dylan said, "One place you’re going to find a lot of doctors is St. James Infirmary. This song’s history is convoluted and fascinating. Louis Armstrong recorded it as early as nineteen and twenty-eight, but it goes back much further. According to one study it got its start as a ballad called 'The Unfortunate Rake'..."

"According to one study," Dylan said. That was wonderful to hear, because most discussions of the song take the assumption of a direct relationship between "St. James Infirmary" and "The Unfortunate Rake" as established fact. That one study was probably A.L Lloyds 1947 article Background to St. James Infirmary Blues. (You can read more about it by accessing this link and searching for the section titled "Tracing a Ballad," a little more than half way down the page.) Far from factual, a direct connection between the two songs is more a tenuous assumption.

A few seconds later, however, Dylan referred to a 1934 song by James "Iron Head" Baker as "the real link between the folk ballad and the pop tune, ‘The Unfortunate Rake’ and ‘St. James Infirmary.’" I suspect this reflects some sloppiness on the part of his research staff, who used Kenneth Goldstein's liner notes to a 1960 Folkways record called "The Unfortunate Rake: A Study in the Evolution of a Ballad" - on which Alan Lomax himself sings the song, "St. James Hospital" - as their primary reference. John Lomax recorded the song (for a while the convict James "Iron Head" Baker served as John's substitute for the recently disaffected Leadbelly) and Alan touted it as a link between the two songs. Actually listening to the songs, however, does not bear this out. One gets the impression that Alan wanted to find a missing link between "St. James Infirmary" and "The Infortunate Rake, " but this is not it.

Book availability

2008-09-07T13:51:00.010-04:00

I was excited to hear that the book, I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, has finally been printed, and will be available within the week. There were some problems with the printing of the cover, and that caused the most recent delay. I wish to thank those of you who have - as long as two years ago - expressed interest in purchasing the book, and to reassure you that I shall be sending you an email as soon as I possibly can.

I spent about five years researching and writing this book. In the course of exploring the usual questions - the relationship between "St. James Infirmary" and "The Unfortunate Rake," for instance - other issues begged for attention. I found out, to my dismay, that Blind Willie McTell (with all his claims to the contrary) did not compose "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues," that great homage to "St. James Infirmary." The fellow who did has been so ignored by music historians that the date and place of his birth have been (until now) unknown. In fact, many of the key players in the SJI drama have been pretty well forgotten. Phil Baxter, Carl "The Deacon" Moore . . . even Irving Mills, aka Joe Primrose, has never had a respectable biography written. The one in this book might be the most complete overview to date of his early life.

Some of the characters who appear in I Went Down to St. James Infirmary are shown in the picture here. Clicking on it should give you a larger image. I started this painting/collage many years ago (thank you, Albert Gleizes), modified it for the cover of the first incarnation of this SJI project - a small book titled A Rake's Progress - and have, in celebration, modified it further here. Many thanks to all who have helped along the way!

Lady Day and SJI

2008-08-24T01:54:00.011-04:00

Here is an example of song borrowing that used St. James Infirmary as its model. Billie Holiday, it seems, really liked the song and wanted something similar but 'original' that she could take into the recording studio. The result was a song called "Tell Me More" based on SJI but with writing credit to Holiday herself. Holiday recorded the song in 1940.

In his book Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon, Donald Clarke quotes songwriter Arthur Herzog. Herzog is recalling the encounter beween Billie Holiday, himself, and his songwriting partner Danny Mendelsohn which led to the writing of the 'new' song:

"She came rushing in to Danny. She was a great artist, but creative - no. She said to Danny, 'Danny, I've got a great tune, take it down for me.’ And she sings, da-daing, 'St. James Infirmary'. So Danny says, ‘Yes, Billie, it’s a great tune, but it's St James Infirmary' .' ‘Oh, Danny, bend it a little for me, bend it.' So Danny took out his pencil, put it in blues time, four/four, attached a bridge to it and said, 'All right Arthur, give me some words.' So I popped the first thing that came into my mind: 'Tell me more and more and then some', inane kind of thing, so we scratched this underneath and forgot about it completely. Six months went by, and there's a record out - 'Tell Me More', words and music by Billie Holiday, sung by Billie Holiday, accompanied by the Billie Holiday Orchestra - of which there was no such thing, of course. There it was. 'Danny, what are we going to do about this? This idiot friend has done this to us and the song isn't worth a goddam.’ I mean, 'St. James Infirmary'. After she died, Herbie Marks called me up and said. 'I seem to remember that you had something to do with this song, and I'd like to do something with it,' and I said, 'Herbie, I can't prove anything, but this song was written by yours truly and the late Danny Mendelsohn.’ That's how it happened. It never made any money."

Donald Clarke continues: "Herzog is being unfair to their own hackwork, to say nothing of using the word ‘creative' in a very limited sense. Lady had commissioned the song and even told them how to write it; of course they should have got some credit. The song has a strong blues feeling, and its lingering resemblance to ‘St. James Infirmary' doesn't hurt a bit, so that it sounds as though you've heard it before but can't remember where. The way the words fall is pleasing, and with the arrangement's stop-time moments and a solo from Teddy, it's an unusual love song and a nice record."

Song and Dance

2008-08-23T00:17:00.016-04:00

The versions of “St. James Infirmary” that appeared in Carl Sandburg’s collection of traditional American songs (The American Songbag – ©1927) were written in 6/8 time. They were ballads. One of the significant differences between these songs and the recordings that both included and followed the 1928 Louis Armstrong recording was a change in rhythm – to 4/4 time. With this change in rhythm the song had become danceable. More specifically, one could dance the foxtrot to it.

The foxtrot originated around 1914 in vaudeville, by dancer Harry Fox. As part of his act Fox was executing trotting steps to ragtime music. Referred to as "Fox's trot" the dance was set to a broken rhythm (slow-slow-quick-quick). Bit by bit the dance moves changed, and with remarkable speed the foxtrot came to dominate the dancehalls and the music scene.

The foxtrot became the dance phenomenon of the 1920s. And the 1930s. And the 1940s. One could whirl around the dance floor, or one could execute the steps in the crush of a crowded venue, dancing (oh, dear!) close together and more or less in place. In those days, before television and computer games and tupperware parties, people danced. Dancehalls were everywhere. It might not be too great an exaggeration to say that dancehalls littered the landscape like Starbucks franchises in the 21st century. Irene and Vernon Castle, the exhibition ballroom dancers pictured here, were among the main celebrities of the day. In fact, by including the scandalous foxtrot in their routines, they sped its popularity.

The "St. James Infirmary" we know was partly shaped by the passion for dance that swept the nation and the world in the decades after the First World War. The song had already become something of a dancehall staple before it entered the recording studio, coming north with traveling musicians looking for work with the big bands. As musician Claude Austin said in 1931 (as transcribed by a court stenographer):

“Well, if there was any lapse in the dancing and the entertainment that was going on, the boss had a way of playing things that they used to call the Rocks, and the Rocks is the same thing as you call the Blues now, and this just happened to fall into that category. It was just one of those things that you did not need any music for, because there was no music for it, that they were able to pick up at the time while they were searching for something else to play of a popular trend, but at that time it was just a general piece we would play, ‘St. James Infirmary.’”

Charleston Cabin - our earliest link?

2008-08-17T20:57:00.023-04:00

Although “St. James Infirmary” is undoubtedly a very old song, very few traces can be found that predate Louis Armstrong’s 1928 recording. There is the Fess Williams recording of “Gambler’s Blues” the previous year, of course. And Carl Sandburg’s inclusion of two versions of “Those Gambler’s Blues” in his book The American Songbag – also from 1927. A song with lyrical similarities can be found in song collector Dorothy Scarborough’s On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs. We shall no doubt discuss that one further in a future post, but even if we acknowledge a direct connection that only takes us back to 1925, the year her book was copyrighted.

When researching “St. James Infirmary” I found anecdotal evidence that placed the song in minstrel shows around 1916, but not much that was more substantial than that. A little over two years ago, though, Rob Walker posted an interesting discussion about a song titled “In a Charleston Cabin.” It's well worth reading. "In a Charleston Cabin" was recorded – extensively – in 1924. Nothing in the lyric is reminiscent of our song, but the melody reminds one of “St. James Infirmary.” We don’t know, of course, if the melody was borrowed from SJI - but at the very least this extends our excavations back to 1924.

For those of you who can read music, I am posting the sheet music to “Charleston Cabin” below. I would be most interested in any comments regarding how closely you find it resembles “St. James Infirmary.” By clicking on the images, you should be able to view larger, readable versions of the files.

Carl "Deacon" Moore advertisement

2008-08-13T23:27:00.008-04:00

I thought it would be interesting to post a few old newspaper advertisements.

This one, from 1937, announces that on Sunday, for 40 cents a person, Carl "Deacon" Moore and his famous orchestra will be the grand special attraction. The woman pictured is Marge Hudson, one of the singers in his band. She is presented in this ad as "The singing artist's model. An exotic beauty of Spanish type."

But the most interesting part of this advertisement is the announcement that Carl Moore is the composer of "St. James Infirmary," "Bye Bye Blues," and "Ding Dong Daddy." As I've noted in earlier posts, Moore always maintained that he wrote the lyrics for "St. James Infirmary." A 1935 newspaper article, announcing the upcoming appearance of Moore and his orchestra, stated: "Moore and Phil Baxter were responsible for many popular melodies being composed. Among them were "Ding Dong Daddy," "St. James Infirmary," "Ride 'em Cowboy."

Louis Armstrong - St. James Infirmary advert

2008-08-13T23:12:00.005-04:00

This advertisement, appearing in a February 1929 Texas newspaper, shows that the language of the minstrel shows was far from dead.

"Hot dancing . . .
"See dis Strutter!
"He's jess like that. Jess like that! And he don't give a doggone whut you say 'bout his clothes.
"Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five are playing No. 8657
"'St. James Infirmary,' 'Save It Pretty Mama.' Fox trots."

It's interesting that, unlike the ad below, this one does not talk about the music. It does suggest, though, that if you owned this record you might very well be a real cool cat.

King Oliver - St. James Infirmary advert

2008-08-13T22:47:00.006-04:00

King Oliver recorded "St. James Infirmary" on January 28, 1930. This was the same day, in the same studio that Gene Austin recorded the song. (Their sessions were probably back-to-back; Oliver's catalog no. is 22298, Austin's 22299.) The ad on the left, for Oliver's record, appeared in a March 1930 newspaper:

"Here's a blazing, blistering 'blues' melody, brimful of primitive rhythm and plaintive fervor. Down in the land of cotton they've been singing it for two decades or more; it's the kind of tune you simply can't forget. Come around and listen to this record by King Oliver and His Orchestra. You'll give ear to some of the 'meanest' trumpet playing you've ever heard in your life."

There's no hint here that Oliver was on his way out. Gum disease was making it harder and more painful for him to play the trumpet. Henry Allen and Bubber Miley handle most if not all of the trumpet parts on this record. Still, this is one of my favourite versions of the song. From the opening bells it has a thoroughly composed feel, and yet it is full of vitality.

Other Victor artists mentioned on this advert include Rudy Valee and Maurice Chevalier.

honey, where you been so long?

2008-08-13T20:35:00.005-04:00

This is quite incredible. I stumbled across a blog this evening where something like 110 versions of "St. James Infirmary" have recently been posted. Called honey, where you been so long, the site specializes in prewar blues, and has all sorts of pages devoted to, oh, female blues singers, country blues, field recording, and so on. Certainly worth a look.

Irving Mills: Song Plugger

2008-08-12T20:51:00.009-04:00

Even as vice-president of Mills Music, president of Gotham Music Service, and music impresario extraordinaire, Irving Mills remained a song plugger at heart. He was a teenager when he first got into the music business and, together with his brother Jack, spent his early years pushing for the success of newly published songs. In 1919 Jack received a $500 bonus for his efforts in publicizing the song Dardanella (and creating, in the process, possibly the first sheet music million seller). This became the seed money for Mills Music, Inc.

In the late 19th century pluggers were known as "boomers," for their ability to belt out a song that could be heard over long distances. They would often sing through megaphones, with racks of sheet music for sale in front of them. Or sit at pianos behind 40 foot counters at the back of a department store, where shoppers could ask to hear samples of the sheet music on sale. By Mills' day the boomer had become a plugger. A good one would become a sort of advertising whirlwind who, in the words of Isaac Goldberg, "by all the arts of persuasion, intrigue, bribery, mayhem, malfeasance, cajolery, entreaty, threat, insinuation, persistence and whatever else he has, sees to it that his employer's music shall be heard."

One of the tools at Mills' command was the recording studio and radio. In 1925 he became probably the first to advertise a song over the radio, when he and one of the songwriters on his staff, Jimmy McHugh, calling themselves "The Hotsy Totsy Boys," performed "Everything is Hotsy Totsy Now." Song plugging for the new electronic age.

Once he secured the copyright to "St. James Infirmary" Mills ensured that it received the widest possible airplay - the greater the number of recordings out there the more likely it would be played, the more popular it would become, and the more copies it would sell. (Mills looked at popular music as having a very short shelf life.) So, between his copyright in March of 1929 and the end of 1930, at least 19 versions of the song were recorded. These included two by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - managed by Mills. For these recordings they were known as the Ten Black Berries, and the Harlem Hot Chocolates. Irving Mills served as vocalist for that last one. Mills Merry Makers (created for recording purposes only), with musicians including Charlie and Jack Teagarden, Harry Goodman (brother of Benny), and Ruby Weinstein recorded a version. Mills could not have had any idea how popular the song would become.

The Power of Song?

2008-08-12T19:38:00.008-04:00

This headline graced The Charleston Gazette on March 22, 1936. I suspect a song plugger might have been responsible for it, but that's only a suspicion. The article does make one curious about the song, though.

The occasion was the imminent publication of the sheet music to a Hungarian song called "Gloomy Sunday." The article described it as "a melancholy song supposed to have driven 18 Hungarians to suicide since it was first heard in Budapest six months ago."

The article continued: "Possibly to keep people from diving off skyscrapers, the American music publishers have given it a 'happy ending,' with the soothing line: 'Dreaming - I was only dreaming.'

"Henry Spitzer, who handles the song for the publisher here, said sadly today:

"Some of the Hungarians are supposed to have jumped into the Danube with copies of 'Gloomy Sunday' clenched in their fists, and some turned the gas on after they heard it over the radio for the first time. Most of them left notes saying they felt like the song.

"But I believe Americans are good, sound, healthy stock, and aren't likely to go killing themselves because a sad song haunts them. After all, this is the country where 'St. James Infirmary Blues' made a big hit."

The article then printed the entire song lyric. This would seem to kill my theory that a song plugger was responsible for the article. But . . . the last paragraphs of this newspaper piece went as follows:

"The only known dissenter with Mr. Spitzer's hope that his happy ending will neutralize the gloominess of the song is Dr. William Marston, well-known psychologist. He says changing the words won't make any difference, explaining:

"It's not the words to a song that have an emotional impact. It's the music."

So, if you wanted the complete story, the full emotional experience, you had to purchase the sheet music.

The Harry Smith Anthology as a Google Map by The Celestial Monochord

2008-08-10T15:41:00.006-04:00

The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music is one of the most influential collections of songs on the planet. Originally released in 1952 on 6 LP records, it is now available on a 6 CD set. Dave Van Ronk wrote that "without the Harry Smith Anthology we could not have existed, because there was no other way for us to get hold of that material."

The songs on this anthology were all recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. You can easily hear an example of musical borrowing by playing The Bentley Boys 1929 "Down on Penny's Farm" next to Bob Dylan's very early (1961) "Hard Times in New York Town." Anyway, this map is an attempt to show "the geographical origin of each cut on Harry Smith's 1952 Anthology." It appears on the site of The Celestial Monochord - Journal of the Institute for Astrophysics and the Hillbilly Blues.

Copyright Infringements Project

2008-08-10T14:55:00.005-04:00

Fellow SJI enthusiast Rob Walker forwarded to me a letter he received from Charles Cronin. Mr. Cronin, among other things, runs a website from UCLA devoted to the question of music copyright infringement. This is a such a thorny issue. Music, of course, has a rich history of borrowing; that is essentially how new songs get written. But how to distinguish between borrowing and theft? And, are we in danger of mistaking the former for the latter, in danger of crippling the creative process in the service of business and profit?

This is an extraordinarily ambitious site. You can read an outline of a 1931-1932 court case that figures prominently in my book. This is in the "Case List" section, but it is also informative to browse the "Song List" section, where Mr. Cronin comments with both clarity and humour about specific songs. Read, for instance, his comments on the (in)famous case of "He's So Fine" vs. "My Sweet Lord."

Phil Baxter

2008-08-10T13:48:00.008-04:00

Phil Baxter was a prolific and successful song-writer. Among his better known compositions we can include "Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas," "Piccolo Pete" (and the follow-up, "Harmonica Harry" - both were early novelty hits for Ted Weems and his orchestra), and "A Faded Summer Love" (which was a hit for Bing Crosby in 1931).

Baxter also claimed co-authorship for "St. James Infirmary." He and Carl Moore actually published the song in 1925, but they neglected to apply for copyright. Baxter, a pianist, was unable to perform after 1933 because of arthritis. On the verge of his leaving for Texas, the Kansas City Journal-Post ran a long article about Baxter, one of the town's favourite musicians, which included this comment: "Baxter has had some litigation over the authorship of one song, which has been in circulation as 'St. James Infirmary,' but which he said he composed long ago and called 'Gambler's Blues.' He said he published it privately in Texas years ago, and that a New York publisher picked it up." That New York publisher was undoubtedly Gotham Music, whose president was Irving Mills.

Information about Phil Baxter is very hard to come by. Recordings of his can still be found on CD, but in compilations with titles like volume 2 of Jazz the World Forgot, or Texas and Tennessee Territory Bands. If anyone has information about Phil, or Carl Moore, I would love to hear from you. I understand that Baxter's friend, Cliff Halliburton, wrote a biography of Phil, but I have been unable to find it and suspect it was never published.

Marjorie Moore and "Deacon" Radio

2008-08-10T12:30:00.006-04:00

Carl Moore was born in 1902. Marjorie Moore, who he married in 1941, is a warm and energetic woman of 92. She remains very affectionate towards Carl, saying "He was one neat guy - very kind and loving and caring." She wrote, "'St. James Infirmary' is a mystery to me, also. I always understood that Carl wrote the words to it." She also remembered "Carl telling me that someone took several songs to Chicago and sold them but did not put his name on them."

Margie sent me a number of photographs and press clippings, including this photo that I did not include in the book. This is Carl as a California country radio dj "The Squeakin' Deacon."

Moore's first radio job was an early morning show on Cincinnati's WLW radio station. This station was originally built to help sell radios and used such a powerful transmitter that it interfered with Canadian radio signals. From Cincinnati the Moore's moved to St. Louis (where Carl hosted a country show called "The Shady Valley Gang"). By 1947 the Moore's made California their permanent home. It is still possible to see Carl "The Squeakin' Deacon" Moore on some of the Bear Family videos of the 1950s country TV show, Town Hall Party, making brief appearances to tell jokes and advertise his Sunday morning amateur hour. On the August 8th, 1959 show you can not only see the Deacon telling a couple of his jokes, but also watch a 27 year old Johnny Cash doing an Elvis impersonation.

Carl "The Deacon" Moore

2008-08-10T01:39:00.013-04:00

When, in 1927, Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra made the first recording of "St. James Infirmary" it had the title "Gambler's Blues." The record label showed a writing credit to Moore-Baxter. Carl Moore and Phil Baxter had published the song two years earlier, when both were members of Baxter's band.

Carl was a drummer. By 1927 he had left Baxter's band and was leading his own orchestra. Born in Arkansas, Carl Moore adopted the role of the hillbilly hick, injecting jokes and skits into all his performances. He recorded, for Decca, only four songs in his career - and while he performed "St. James Infirmary" throughout his band career, he never recorded the song.

During World War II, when it became impossible to maintain a touring orchestra, Moore became a radio disc jockey, specializing in the newly emerging country music. Moore always maintained that he wrote "St. James Infirmary."