Topic: Composer/ publisher credits of the song: Don't You Leave Me Here

[yayayas]

Hi fellow Country Blues fans
I need to know the composer/ publisher credits of the song:
 Don't You Leave Me Here?
A version by myself is included on a new CD and I need to finalise this very soon.
As I no longer have the? vinyl? I learnt it from in the 70s
I am thinking it's most likely Pappa Harvey Hull of Sunny Boy and His Pals who also did France Blues.
It's definitely not the Jelly Roll Morton song of the same name as I have a copy of this.
I am including some of the lyrics to help with identification. It's similar but not the same as Don't Ease Me In by Henry Thomas.
Allmusic.com and amazon had no mp3s for me to verify this


Could any one who knows this song please help me verify the composer
The lyrics may have altered over the years through my performance of them (the folk process in work)
cheers yayayas

Don't You Leave Me Here

Don't you leave don't you leave
Don't you leave me here
Well it's all night long, come anyhow
Leave a dime for beer.

How long, how long
Has the train been gone
How long, how long, sweet loving babe, has the train been gone.

Alabama bound, I'm a Alabama bound
And if the ship don't sink and the stack/shack burn down
Alabama bound

She brought me coffee, she brought me tea,
She brought me everything seet lovin babe but the jailhouse key? ? ?

Katy Addams got ways
Just like a man
Well she steals a woman sweet loving babe every where she lands

[uncle bud]

Papa Harvey Hull and Long "Cleve" Reed as the Down Home Boys do this with the lyrics you've got here more or less.

This is one that probably falls under "Traditional" though, isn't it?

[madmike31651]

Henry Thomas did a version in the 1920's called "Don't Leave Me Here", which he later did as "Don't Ease Me In".

madmike

[Slack]

Welcome to the forum madmike!

[yayayas]

thanks for the prompt response uncle bud and madmike
yes I suppose I could put Trad Arranged....
there are many other early blues songs on my cd were the same thing may apply
if thecomposer hasn't been dead for 50 years then I should make sure royalties are sent to the right person.
I'd still like to give credit to the original composer though this song definitely seems like a folk song that various people have addapted.
I might post a list of the songs for input regarding authorship and when the author died if people are willing to help
cheers
yayayas

[Richard]

Can't tell you what the lyrics were, but the earliest recordings of? "Don't you leave me here" that I can find? were by
-? Papa Harvey Hull with Long Cleeve Reed, Sonny Wilson? - April '27? ?guitar based
-? Laura Smith\Sarah Lawrence with Tom Morris - Feb '27? more jazz based

So, by a process of deduction would you agree that the earliest? recording is probably tthe original song - that is, of course, unless someone else composed another song with the same title... ?

[Wheatpenny]

I thought it was Jelly Roll Norton?? I did a little searching and found this referenced on http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex/d07.htm

Scroll down you should see it.?

Wheat

PS I was sitting hear at work, humming the tune, and hearing Van Ronk sing it in my head (he does my favorite version) and I also remember him crediting Jelly Roll Norton on his new live CD "Tin Panlley and the Story Ends" I think that is what it is called.? It might be a good place to start.

[Slack]

Welcome to the Forum Wheat!

[uncle bud]

Yes, welcome, Wheatpenny! Good to see some new names posting and general delurking going on.

Jelly Roll Morton's version, that I know of, is from a 1939 recording, and is a different tune. A goddamn great tune though. Anyone wanting to hear it (and you should if you haven't) can check it out at
http://www.redhotjazz.com/jellyroll.html in a realaudio file, among many others. Van Ronk was certainly a big Jelly Roll fan, from what I've heard.

I'm sure Jelly Roll would have taken credit for any tune though.

[Richard]

Yes, the JRM recoding was late 30's.

I know I gave this as one source of the song in my earlier post -

-? Papa Harvey Hull with Long Cleeve Reed, Sonny Wilson? - April '27? ?guitar based?

and, am somewhat surprised that nobody has jumped in and said bala blaa blaa about them as they seem a bit obscure and I didn't know them till I looked for the song.

Has anyone every heard (of) them, since there is a guitar duo between Reed and Wilson and we are on occasion quite into the obscure...

[uncle bud]

Yup, Richard, I've heard them, as have a number of Weenies if they own the Songster Tradition on Document or caught John Miller teaching their Original Stack 'o Lee Blues at PT. I did mention them above as well. And they're on the Juke. They're also the source of France Blues. I like 'em...

[uncle bud]

Just following up here...

According to Chris Smith's liner notes for the Songster Tradition CD, the guitar style of Reed and Wilson suggest a South Memphis origin, Garfield Akers and Joe Callicott, Frank Stokes and Dan Sane country. I don't really hear either of those but he seems to mean the duet style.? "Their repertoire, typically for songsters on race records, includes blues, ballads and pre-World War I songs like Alabama Bound" i.e., Don't You Leave Me Here. So trying to track down the origins of Alabama Bound might provide clues, but I still say this credit is going to read "Traditional".

[Rats in my Kitchen]

Red Hot Jazz Archive has this by Charlie Johnson's Paradise Orchestra, Victor20653 , 36117-1, New York, 2-25-25 with Monette Moore on vocal, and a note crediting Jelly Roll as composer. Not sure that's correct. See http://www.redhotjazz.com/cjpo.html