Topic: Willie Brown Lyrics

[southernpicker]

Hi friends,
can anybody help with this great song?
I have almost finished with the guitar part, but would like to nail it with the right lyrics... 

Thanks in advance!
Hector
Alicante, Spain

[Rivers]

Hi Hector, that would be Willie Brown yes?

I learned it years ago but have forgotton it. Stephan Grossman included it in his Delta Blues book I seem to remember, with tab. Mine is in a container headed for Houston so cannot look it up for you. Great song.

[southernpicker]

yeah sorry, Willie Brown.... 

thanks

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

Can somebody give me the lyrics to Willie Brown's "M&O Blues" I don't own the entire song.


Thanks,
Calvin

[Coyote Slim]

I posted 'em over on the BBF.   

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

I posted 'em over on the BBF.   

Yep, Thanks

[Dr. G]

Does anyone know the location, and significance, of Willie Brown's evocative "Decatur Hill" -- where he has a notion to build a mansion?

Thought it would be an easy search, but it wasn't.

Thanks!

Dr. G

[Bunker Hill]

This is from a very hazy memory of somebody posing this question in a magazine 35-40 years ago. There was supposed to have been a stretch of Texas railroad named Decatur Hill which had an extremely steep gradient and became legendary for the quantity of boilers it burst. Don't quite know why one would want to build a mansion at its apex though.

This is only a memory and not to be trusted.

[Blueshome]

There are several towns/cities named Decatur, and probably many streets and landmarks named after Stephen Decatur who was an early US naval hero (d.1820).

[Dr. G]

Thanks, Bunker Hill. The very first Google option gives a YouTube clip of "A Coal train at sunset working hard up Decatur Hill...nice to look at, but didn't say where it was. The landscape looks pretty desolate. My guess is that you have located the coal train...and, possibly, Willie Brown's inspiration.

I had always imagined that "Decatur Hill" was the fancy part (high-rent district) of some city like Vicksburg or Natchez that a bluesman could scarcely frequent, much less live in...but realized that that this was only my own imagination running free, and I became quite dissatisfied with lack of confirmation of my own invention. Still am.

Your version seems more plausible...especially in view of the possibility than an itinerant bluesman might actually have ridden that particular stretch of track.

Dr. G

[Dr. G]

Thanks, Blueshome. I appreciate the historical reference.

Do you have a preference for which "Decatur" -- whether city or landmark -- Brown may have been singing about...and a rationale? What do you think of Bunker Hill's suggestion?

Dr. G

[Richard]

If my memory is right there is Decatur Street Strut as a jazz tune, presumably named after Decatur Street, New Orleans which I believe was by Canal Street (Canal St Blues etc).

I suppose if it were in England it would be something like Acacia Avenue Blues..oooopps am I wandering again?

[Dr. G]

Hey Richard

How is it that you Brits seem to know more about American jazz traditions than us Yanks??!!

I'd like your Decatur Street, New Orleans reference except for the fact that I HAVE been to that particular Real Estate a few times. They've got plenty of great stuff down there, but, man, a "hill" of any description sure ain't one of them!

Still waiting for some Weenie south of the Mason-Dixon to clue me in to some town or other with an actual hill called "Decatur" within the city limits -- you know, like "Nob Hill" in S.F., or "Beacon Hill" in Boston...or even "Bunker Hill", over in Charlestown...speaking of Bunker Hill...whose Texas R.R. incline stands for now as the most plausible submission (!)

Keep 'em coming, though...I'm not sure that this riddle has been definitively solved yet.

Dr. G

[Blueshome]

Dr G, I don't have a specific reference, but Decatur is such a common place name (eg Decatur Street in Atlanta) that it could well refer to a district of some southern city. I prefer this to the freight train reference as I believe that hill was in Indiana if I recollect correctly, or Texas if BH is right (more probably), both remote from the Delta.

The line "I'm going to build me a mansion on .......... Hill" is very common.

Anyway, it's over to you geographers in the the old colonies now to put the pin in the map.

[Dr. G]

Thanks for your further input, Blueshome (Phil).

Your reminding me that the "Gonna build me a mansion out on Decatur Hill" line is not unique to Willie Brown rescued me from further obsessing about whether Brown may have passed through a "Decatur Hill" on his way to, say, Grafton, Wisconsin, which (like Texas) is a bit of a haul from the delta.

That opened the doors for a much wider search for suitable candidates...which obviously needed to include ones that other bluesmen might have longed to put down roots in.

After some more Googling, and further obsession about additional candidates, this Old Colonial has made an executive decision to pin the flag on Decatur, Georgia -- which seems to fulfill most of the prerequisites: it is located 6 miles from downtown Atlanta; it has lovely antebellum homes and civic buildings; it was considered by its residents to be so desirable that they rejected an offer to make it a major railroad terminus; it eventually became an exclusive suburban area from which persons of means commuted to downtown Atlanta on a special train;  it experienced an interval "white flight" as the Atlanta city limits pushed eastward towards it (because Willie Brown wasn't the only one to have a notion of building a mansion there?); and it has some hilly terrain.

Decatur's century-old railroad depot alone is enough to make Decatur, GA a worthy candidate for reference in a classic blues (or two). See the great picture at http://www.trainweb.org/decaturdepot/depot.html.

Case going to the "cold file" until someone else has a better inspiration...or, even better, a fact or two!

Thanks all for the commiseration.

Dr. G