Quite by accident, my research into the long history of the song "St. James Infirmary," has become entangled with copyright.
Essentially, copyright is meant to reward the creator "for a limited time" before returning the creation to the commons, where others can use it for building the future. That is, nothing (songs, sewing machines ...) is created out of nothing - we all depend upon what went before. And we all build upon the past. There is no unique creation. But ...
Corporations want to protect what brings them money. And so, successfully, they have pressured governments to lengthen copyright restrictions.The more lengthy and restrictive the copyright laws become, the more impoverished do we all become as creators, or even just as listeners/viewers/readers ...
This contemporary notion of monetization has become an illness which has infected all of us.
Thanks, Rick, for your post!
When I began research into the history of "St. James Infirmary," it was obvious that Porter Grainger would become a major character in the book. It wasn't long before I came to the realization that Grainger is one of the great-but-forgotten songwriters of the early 20th century.
1939 photo of black musicians/composers in Harlem. (Click on the image to enlarge.)
Until I looked into census records, his birth date was unknown. Not because it was hidden, but because interest in him was so low that nobody had bothered to look.
Still, here he is in a 1939 photograph of major black composers/musicians in Harlem. Jelly Roll Martin, Eubie Blake, Kay Parker, Perry Bradford, James P. Johnson ... Porter Grainger (right of photo, beside Claude Hopkins in the white suit).
Death Certificate for Porter Grainger
Gradually he sank out of sight. He remains in the pantheon of the forgotten.
It was long thought that, due to dating of copyright renewals in his name, Grainger died in New York between 1951 and 1955. In fact, he died on October 30, 1948. (A genealogy researcher who goes by the name ladylorax recently unearthed the death certificate on ancestry.com.)
When the certificate was completed, his name was entered as "Porter, Granger" (that is, Granger Porter)—hence the difficulty in finding the record. He was living at 1300 Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was brought to the Passavant Hospital at noon, where he remained for twenty minutes (which suggests he was DOA). Cause of death was written as "Pneumonitis, due to dentures lodged in his trachea." In other words, he choked on his dentures. He was 57 years and 9 days old.
This caused me to reflect – in a roundabout way – that musicians are sometimes stimulated to write songs about ... Bob Dylan. Here are three of those songs – two of which ask "What if I was Bob Dylan?"
1. In 2010 the Italian musician, Roberto Tardito, released a song in both Italian ("Se Fossi Dylan") and English ("If I Were Dylan").
Towards the end of "If I Were Dylan" Tardito sings:
I'd have a long story to tell, a hard long story Of money, women, disillusion A secret longing to go far away To walk on distant paths, never trodden before If I were Dylan I'd not speak any more I'd not speak any more
Alas, I could find no computer link (including Spotify) for either the Italian or the English recordings. However, about fifteen years ago I bought an mp3 of the song. Blogger does not permit the loading of audio files. But Substack does, and you can find this rarity by travelling to my Substack version of this post. Click here.
2. In 2010 Cade and the Taliesins released the song "If I Was Bob Dylan" on their album The Spiral. Cade and the Taliesins is, again, close to impossible to find information about (although their album is on Spotify). The band is probably from the U.S. and is brainchild of Cade Johnson. Do they still exist? Who is Cade Johnson?
In the opening of "If I Was Bob Dylan," a love song, Cade sings:
If I was Bob Dylan I would write a new song everyday If I could be your Bob Dylan I would speak to you in metaphors always
3. In 2008 Cat Power released "Song to Bobby" on her album Jukebox. In contrast to the above, I suspect all readers know of Cat Power, who has recently toured with her interpretation of Dylan's 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert.
In the opening of "Song to Bobby," Cat Power sings:
I wanna tell you I've always wanted to tell you But I never had the chance to say What I feel in my heart from the beginning til my dying day
There must be other songs of this ilk. Can you send your favourites?
Tardito answered (thank you Google's translator for this):
"If I were Dylan, I'd have the credit and attention to allow me to experiment, both in the studio and live, that constantly break the mold. Or rather: I am and feel like a free artist, I'm not under the control of a multinational. I don't care in the slightest what people might like or dislike, I don't try to accommodate anyone. I don't make calculations. Today I'm on this path, nothing prevents me from taking another tomorrow. Of course, if I experiment, it's under the eyes of a few; if Dylan or his colleagues do it it's under the eyes of the world."
Sometime in June, 2025 YouTube posted an entry devoted to Dylan's song "Blind Willie McTell," which went unreleased for eight years after it was recorded. The song is referred to as "a masterpiece." I am uncomfortable with the bandying about of that word, but, yes, it is a masterpiece. The video is about 50 minutes long, and revelatory for any fan of Dylan's music.
Pam and I encountered this item accidentally. One evening, after supper, we were scanning YouTube options on our TV. The algorithms (I guess it was that) steered us to an entry devoted to the complicated history essential for the evolution of that song.
At one point, early in the video, I turned to Pam and uttered, "That's I Went Down to St. James Infirmary."
Possibly 75% of the research that went into the script of this 50 minute piece came from our book.
This video is a fascinating piece of work, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the development of songs. Interested in old weird Americana. Interested in the junction between songs new and olde. Interested in something both informative and fun.
Calloway was, according to my count, the twenty-second person to record "St. James Infirmary." This was a mere three years after Fess Williams' and the Royal Flush Orchestra's initial release, then titled "Gambler's Blues," in 1927. One year after Louis Armstrong's version (recorded in 1928, released in 1929).
Cab restricted the song to the three verses that Louis Armstrong definitively recorded in 1928 (the 3rd recording of the song). Fess Williams, on the other hand, included eight verses.
As I wrote about in the book I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, other early recordings (for instance, two versions by the Hokum Boys in 1929 (4th & 5th overall)) had a much different lyric, now forgotten - but, still, obviously SJI.
Carl Sandburg's written notation - the first one ever (1927) could only scrape the surface of the many versions that were making the rounds throughout North America with solo blues singers, small and large touring bands, in fancy night clubs and sleazy bars and back porches and living rooms and brothels and street corners and music halls, before the recording studios more or less defined (and restrained) the song into the variations we hear today.
Cab Calloway, performing at Harlem's notorious Cotton Club in the 1930s, used SJI as his theme song. Until, using the same opening and the same melodic structure, he substituted Minnie the Moocher - which was based upon a "traditional" song (also documented in Sandburg's "American Songbag") titled Willie the Weeper.
This is such a small part of the story, and it's pretty recent.
(Btw I have no doubt that Michael Jackson studied Calloway's moves.)
The long history of this song is fascinating.
So, in a nod to recent history, here are two videos of Cab Calloway performing St. James Infirmary. The first is from 1947, from his movie "Hi-Di-Ho," seventeen years after his first recording of the song. (He presents the protagonist as a hopeless failure, rather than the gambler who could afford the extravagant funeral arrangements.) The second is from his 1964 appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," preceding The Beatles' third appearance. (You can see both of these on my blog entry from 2021.)
"The New Music of Reginald Foresythe" This was the name of his band. It was also his notion that he could influence the musical atmosphere of jazz.
Reginald Foresythe isn't a name you hear much these days. He was born in 1907, and made a splash in both the U.S. and (his birthplace) Britain in the 1920s and 30s.
He was a talented pianist and accordionist. He's probably best known as leader of a band (piano, clarinet, saxes, bassoon - no trumpets!) called "The New Music of Reginald Foresythe." He certainly saw himself as an innovator. Jazzy, but not jazz. Well, jazzy with an odd, impressionistic, edge.
Popular songs of his carried titles such as "Serenade For A Wealthy Widow," "Berceuse For An Unwanted Child," "Dodging A Divorcee," "Dinner Music For A Bunch Of Hungry Cannibals," "Revolt Of The Yes-Men."
Among these was a piece titled "Deep Forest - A Hymn To Darkness #1." (Which was followed by "Lament For The Congo - A Hymn To Darkness #2.")
For this post, we are more interested in "Deep Forest - A Hymn To Darkness #1."
This was recorded only a couple of years after Louis Armstrong released his iconic version of "St. James Infirmary." The third recording of the song, Armstrong's became the template for future arrangements. And now, a couple of years after that 1929 release, we find a song using the SJI melody as a dominant feature of the piece.
Oh. That Louis Armstrong release, with Armstrong's Savoy Ballroom Five, featured Earl Hines on piano. Hines later recorded "Deep Forest," with its SJI melody, two years later. So did Paul Whiteman and his orchestra, in 1934.
Paul Whiteman was a big deal. He was the most successful popular artist of the 1920s. In that decade alone, 63 of his songs were top 40 hits. 13 of those reached #1. He is one of the biggest selling musicians in all of recorded popular music. He kept "Deep Forest" as an instrumental, disposing of Foresythe's lyrics:
At the call of day I must lay my dreams away Once again with my heavy load I'm ploddin' on the road
Oh night where can you be Please set the darkness free Toilin' all the day in life's deep forest You mean dreams and rest for weary me
SJI was recorded at least two dozen times between 1928 and 1930. But its melody was already being incorporated into new songs. Love and theft.
Reginald Foresythe - Deep Forest - A Hymn To Darkness #1
Inside cover of Denton & Haskins 1930 "St. James Infirmary." Item should enlarge if clicked on.
In this blog entry - and in more detail in I Went Down to St. James Infirmary - I write about a 1930 New York court case where Irving Mills' music company sued the music publisher Denton & Haskins.
Denton and Haskins (D&H) were selling a song, "St. James Infirmary," that Mills Music had been heavily promoting over the previous year. (These were the early days of song recording when sheet music outsold records.) While the song published by D&H had the SJI title, the lyrics were much different. D&H hired Claude Austin to write new music and William J. McKenna to write a new lyric. (D&H also included current lyrics inside the front cover; see first image.) D&H were really pushing this issue. The cover title was St. James Infirmary or The Gambler's Blues also known as St. Joe's Infirmary. These were different titles for more or less the same song. So, they were confident in their assertion that they could market a song with a title that was already in use.
Cover Denton&Haskins SJI
Mills Music argued that Denton & Haskins was taking unfair advantage of their advertising and promotion, and thereby profiting from Mills' investment in the song.
When I looked into this, the chief librarian at the New York Supreme Court kindly sent about 600 pages of testimony and legal argument. On trial and appeal Mills won the case, but when it was referred to the Appeals Court, he lost, and had to pay costs.
I had interpreted the judgements as supportive of Mills' claim, and only when I received an e-mail from a New York lawyer, Bruce R. Kraus, correcting my interpretation, did I realize that I had read the"dissenting opinion" as the court ruling.
Cover Mills Music SJI
Irving Mills did not appear in court, but submitted a signed affidavit. Among other admissions, he agreed that the song did not originate with him, or with Mills Music, or with "Joe Primrose." But since this was not a federal court, those admissions meant little as far as copyright and song ownership. As Kraus pointed out, this lawsuit served warning that Irving Mills and Mills Music were not to be fooled with; to challenge them could become an expensive proposition - Mills Music had deep pockets and were unafraid of confrontation.
Of course, this New York case was not about copyright, which is a federal and not a state matter. But, then again ... in the arguments for Mills Music, Irving was saying that I own this title, I have expended considerable effort, energy, and money in publicizing the song. It is unfair that another company gets to profit from my efforts.
Maybe it was due to this warning - the warning that Mills Music would aggressively challenge legal submissions - that the copyright for St. James Infirmary was never challenged in federal court, and Mills continued to profit from the song for many years.
As Bruce Kraus succinctly explained, "you cannot copyright a title." Copyright law considers titles or phrases to be too short; they contain insufficient creative effort to warrant copyright.
For instance, the Beatles famously recorded "The End" on Abbey Road in 1969. Two years earlier The Doors had recorded a song called "The End" on their 1967 eponymous debut
album. So did Pearl Jam (2009), Kings of Leon (2010), and quite a few others.
How many songs have been titled "I Love You"?
From Bob Dylan's 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year speech: “I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that’s fair game, that everything belongs to everyone.” (italics extra)
"Everything belongs to everyone," Dylan said. Utopian. Undeniably true. And that's St. James Infirmary.
After the tragic event on January 1st, 2025, it seemed appropriate to post a couple of performances - each with its distinct flavour - of a song closely related to the city of New Orleans. St. James Infirmary.
Pam and I stayed with friends in NOLA a few years ago. We heard the song played everywhere; in small jazz venues, on street corners, and in food venues such as the Cafe du Monde, all in the French quarter. A grand time was had by all. It was the Jazz Festival. Streets were crowded, everyone was smiling.
First, is an award-winning Canadian band, living on a small island off the west coast, Blue Moon Marquee. Exceptionally talented, their take on St. James Infirmary.
Next, New Orleans legend Trombone Shorty. At the Obama White House.
New Orleans will always rise from turmoils visited upon it - whether storms or terror attacks.
Continuing with contemporary approaches to SJI, here are two Dee Dee Bridgewater interpretations of the song.
Bridgewater does some gender-bending in her version. She recorded this on 2015s remarkable Dee Dee's Feathers.
I have included two of her variations. Like jazz (or the blues) her approach to the song allows her musicians to have space. Space. SJI allows space for improvisation and interpretation, and Dee Dee takes advantage of that.
Debbie Burke recently interviewed me for her blog, "Debbie Burke - jazz author."
She hosts a remarkable site - I recommend checking it out! Her books can be found via amazon, and on her site.
Since she was the interviewer and I was the interviewee, there's not much I can add, except, of course, for the interview itself. So, for those of you interested in following further, here is the link:
Back in September I promised a series of contemporary interpretations of St. James Infirmary. We started with a young Rufus Wainwright. This is the second in that series and you will find two variations this time (plus a delightful interpretation of "Simple Twist of Fate").
First, David Mattson.
David Mattson on guitar
Now living in Largo, Florida, David has lived in all but one of the U.S. states, and a few other countries. He currently uses a Joe Beck alto guitar, made for him by a friend. His interpretation of SJI is a charming reimagining, with the refrain "her left hand brushing back her hair" transforming into a tender conclusion. He would use his rewritten SJI when doing soundchecks, or as an opener for gigs, allowing lots of room for improvisation.
This is a beautiful example of how SJI can be adapted by creative artists; always recognizable, always different.
Raygun Carver
Our second example.
Raygun Carver - a band name for Michael Soiseth - released his first album, "Moon Fields Yawning," in 2020. Raised around Port Angeles, he has an idiosyncratic sound, with refreshing interpretations and beautifully crafted originals. Of the latter, his "Everywhere You Go Is Where You'll Be," suggests that regardless of where we live, regardless of where we move, we remain who we are - changing the place does not change the person. Ahhhh, but maybe, changing the person can change the place?
His take on SJI is invigorating.
And, of course, not only traditional songs are open to interpretation. Raygun Carver's phrasing and timing on Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate" opens us up for a new listen. (For instance, cue in to Carver's song at about 1:10 - "like a freight train ...")
There are so many interpretations of SJI. So many.
I am planning to post a few recent variations, starting with Rufus Wainwright. This song was recorded in 1998, part of his first album but excluded from it and re-introduced on a 25th anniversary CD.
Rufus creates a link between The Unfortunate Rake and SJI. He mixes them together as a kind of gumbo, combining lyrical touches from SJI and Streets of Laredo. Mostly, though, it's The Unfortunate Rake that he references.
The song starts: "Early one morning at the St. James Infirmary Early one morning in the month of May I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen Wrapped in white linen, and as cold as the clay"
And later: "Call for the doctor, come and heal my body Call for the preacher to heal up my soul For my poor head is aching and my sad heart is breaking I'm a poor, rundown cowboy and hell is my doom"
Aside from the name of the institution (St. James Infirmary rather than St. James Hospital), this is pretty well The Unfortunate Rake - and nothing in this version, or any other version of The Unfortunate Rake, makes me think of SJI - either lyrically or melodically.
He delivers a good song.
This is not surprising: he is always brightly original, sparkling, in both his own compositions and his interpretations.
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