Maria Muldaur, Harry Belafonte, Victoria Spivey, Carolyn Hester, Porter Grainger, Bob Dylan, etc.... Links in a chain

Well, it seems I'm on a Porter Grainger (or maybe a Bob Dylan) run.

So ... here's the latest. 

In March, 1962, about the same time his first album was released, Bob Dylan served as a backup musician, playing harmonica, for an album featuring blues legends Victoria Spivey (b. 1906), Big Joe Williams (b. 1903), Roosevelt Sykes (b. 1906), and Lonnie Johnson (b. 1899). The album was titled Three Kings and a Queen. Young guy, aging legends; Dylan fit right in.

1962 was a busy year for Dylan the session player. He was twenty years old, and had already served as harmonica backup for Harry Belafonte on Belafonte's 1962 release of "Midnight Special."

Harry Belafonte (Dylan, 20 yrs old, on harmonica) "Midnight Special" 1962. 

He had also played harp for three songs on Carolyn Hester's self-titled third album. On the one below, Hester's interpretation of Walter Davis' (1911-1963) "Come Back Baby," Dylan's harmonica has a subdued subterranean pulse. But at around 1:50 he holds a note for twenty seconds before modulating. This young man was a creative, well-practiced instrumentalist, sensitive to the nuances of a song, sensitive to how he contributed to the whole.


Carolyn Hester, "Come Back Baby," 1961.

So, back to Porter Grainger.

The back cover of Dylan's New Morning CD features a photograph of him (standing with a guitar) beside Spivey (sitting at a piano). Spivey had often recorded with Porter Grainger accompanying on piano and occasionally backup vocals. They wrote songs together. In 1937 she recorded Porter Grainger's "One Hour Mama."

Victoria Spivey "One Hour Mama" 1937

Written by Grainger, this is a woman talking about sex. Porter Grainger was extraordinary in this way; he had an ability to emulate another's point of view. 

I've always heard that haste makes waste
So I believe in takin' my time
The highest mountain can't be raced
It's something you must slowly climb

I want a slow and easy man
He needn't ever take the lead
'Cause I work on that long-time plan
And I ain't a-lookin' for no speed

Etc.

Grainger did this again and again. He could grasp a female point of view and make it universal (from  "Sing Sing Prison Blues," written for Bessie Smith: "Judge, you ain't no woman / And you can't understand"). He could take the perspective of a slave, and make you feel it (from "Song From A Cotton Field:" "All my life I been makin' it / All my life white folks takin' it ' / This ol' heart they jus' breakin' it...") He could communicate pride (with maybe a touch of cynicism) in black engagements in war (1919's "When Our Brown Skin' Soldier Boys Come Home From War" ... can you recall any other WW1 patriotic song with black Americans as the focus?). 

He often wrote in a cabaret style popular in the '20s, but he could could take on the blues (music, rhythm, lyric), he could take on spirituals, he could take on popular music.

Porter Grainger has been forgotten.

How do we forget the composer of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" and "Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do?" How do we dismiss almost everything else he wrote? (Until I wrote I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, it was assumed that Blind Willie McTell wrote "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues.")

2025.
Maria Muldaur, possibly first coming to public awareness as a member of the early 1960s Even Dozen Jazz Band, interprets songs as if she was living the lyric - this is a signal of a great singer, as it is of a great actor. Her contributions to the Americana canon are exemplary.

She released an album of Victoria Spivey songs in 2025. The title song is Porter Grainger's "One Hour Mama." Muldaur reaches deeply into formative blues throughout the album, her vocals are evocative, drawing out the nuance of the lyric, and the instrumental underpinnings could not be more sympathetic. It's also a whole lot of fun!

Maria Muldaur "One Hour Mama" 2025

So thank you, Maria Muldaur, from both me and, I am sure, Porter Grainger. (Spivey would have loved this!!)

You can find more selections from Three Kings and the Queen on-line. The LP was originally released on Spivey Records, co-founded by Victoria Spivey and jazz historian Len Kunstadt. Spivey died in 1976, and the label ceased production after Kunstadt's death twenty years later. Occasionally reports emerge that the music has been re-engineered, and the label is about to be revived, but nothing materializes. Used copies can be found via sites like Discogs.

Porter Grainger: Sheet Music

Some time back I posted both an MP3 and the lyrics to a 1927 Porter Grainger song called "Song From a Cotton Field." You can see those postings here. The MP3 features Grainger as both pianist and vocalist.

A couple of months ago the sheet music for a number of Grainger songs came up for sale. I could only afford to bid for one of them, and this is it.

There are a few things about the cover that catch my attention. First, of course, is the photograph of the performers. "The Record Boys" (good luck trying to find them in any music database today) are dressed in tuxedos, looking very sophisticated, in order to represent a song with lyrics like:

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

(Of course, in those days publishers would design these covers with an empty frame where the photograph of a performer could be inserted before reprinting the music sheets. It could very well have been another performer of the song, Bessie Brown, who was pictured there. What I mean is, the photograph of The Record Boys was probably their standard publicity photo, and was not chosen with the theme of the particular song in mind. Even so, I still find the contrast jarring.)

The second is the subtitle. "A Southern Classic." There was nothing classic about this song. It was written by Porter Grainger not long before this sheet music was released. But its lyric hearkens back to the cotton fields, and I guess the publishers felt this was a good marketing ploy. I doubt Grainger would have objected; he wrote songs in order to make a living.

And then there is the publisher's stamp at the bottom of the page. None other than Gotham Music Service - the publishing arm of Mills Music, of which Irving Mills was vice-president; his brother Jack was president. (For those new to this subject, Irving Mills was Joe Primrose, the fictional - in more than one way - composer of "St. James Infirmary.")

So, back in 1927 Mills was actually publishing the music of Porter Grainger. This is the same Porter Grainger who, at about this time, wrote "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues," which was long considered a Blind Willie McTell composition and a tribute of sorts to "St. James Infirmary," but which was not written by McTell and was recorded before "St. James Infirmary."

The images here should enlarge if you click on them. Pay attention to the small advertisements on the bottom of the pages - which are kind of like intrusive Internet ads. For instance one of them features songwriter Rube Bloom, who had a hit for Mills with "Soliloquy" and who was one of the many who recorded SJI under the Mills umbrella in 1930.

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

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 posted 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" MP3

You can follow the full lyric in the post below.

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

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'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 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

1927 Porter Grainger songs

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!