Topic: Part 1... Part 2... songs in parts.

[LoneWolf]

Song like "Black Gal" (Joe Pullum), "Sittin on Top of the World" (Sheiks), "The Howling Wolf" (Funny Paper Smith), and too many others to mention, were recorded in parts. I wonder if it's only because all of those traditional tunes got so many verses that the artists had to split them, so the song won't be too long.

[dj]

Some songs recorded as "Part 1" and "Part 2" were indeed recorded because the singer had too many verses to fit on one side of a disk.  Examples of this would be Son House's "My Black Mama", "Preachin' Blues" and "Dry Spell Blues" and Garfield Akers "Cottonfields Blues".  Other multiple part songs, like those by Joe Pullum and the Mississippi Sheiks that you mention, were originally recorded just as a single side, and when the song became a hit the artist was asked to record a "Part 2", "Part 3", etc. to cash in on the popularity of the original record.     

[waxwing]

Clifford Gibson's Tired of Being Mistreated would be another, one in which he also had more breaks. He plays three different breaks in the combined two parts, playing the best one (which Johnm taught at PT a year back) once in each part, giving two breaks and 6 verses in each part.

All for now.
John C.