This song has so much: a great tune, a great and unusual refrain, at least two great sets of verses, and a great title crying out to be stolen by other songs. And it's proved a great showcase for accompanists on harmonica piano or guitar.
Choose your favourite singer or band from the sixties and they've probably done an excellent version. I'll concentrate on the earlier records.
The first we know of it is as
Someday Baby Blues recorded by Sleepy John Estes in 1935 with Hammie Nixon on harmonica. (Buddy Moss's earlier
Someday Baby is not the same song.) When I was a boy, in the days before books by Blues scholars, Sleepy John was ? quite literally ? a legend. (At least that's what he was here in Britain). Some Jazz record collectors assumed that he was an archaic throwback. Big Bill humoured them with a tale of how as a young man he'd heard Estes as an old man singing the lead to track-lining crews. So many of us were later astonished to see him on a European tour. Hammie also came. He hadn't been a legend, but he made his mark as a showman. Still, I didn't realise what a fine musician he was.
I don't care how long you gone
I don't care how long you stay
But that good kind treatment
Bring you back home someday
Someday baby
You ain't goin' worry
My mind
Anymore
Ah that wind
That old chilly breeze
Come blowin' through
Your BVDs
But someday baby
You ain't goin' worry
My mind
Anymore
If you don't quit bettin'
Boy them dice won't pass
It's gonna send you home
On your yes yes yes
But someday baby
You ain't gonna worry
My life
Anymore
It ain't but the one thing
That give a man the blues
He ain't got no bottom
In his last pair of shoes
But someday baby
You ain't gonna worry
My mind
Anymore
I tell all the people in your neighbourhood
You's a no good woman
You don't mean no good
But someday baby
You ain't gonna worry
Poor John's mind
Anymore
This was such a hit that John recorded a follow-up
New Someday Baby in 1938 backed by a second guitar but without Hammie Nixon. I haven't heard any version that copies any of the new lyrics.
The lyrics and the guitar-harmonica sound of the first version were covered by Big Joe Williams with Sonny Boy Williamson in 1941. Joe largely sings John's lyrics, ending with this unexpected AAB couplet.
You can steal my chickens boy, you sure can't make them lay
You can steal my chickens but you, you sure can't make them lay
You can steal my best woman, but you sure can't make her stay
Also in 1941, Big Maceo Merriweather reworked the song with a new title
Worried Life Blues, a new rhythm, and a new set of verses crafted to make a coherent text. Perhaps the most radical change was to sing the last line of the refrain without pauses. Tampa Red's guitar contribution is melodic but simple.
Oh Lordy Lord, oh Lordy Lord
It hurts me so bad, for us to part
But someday baby
I ain't gonna worry my life any more
So many nights, since you've been gone
I been worried and grieving, my life alone
But someday baby
I ain't gonna worry my life any more
So many days, since you went away
I had to worry, both night and day
But someday baby
I ain't gonna worry my life any more
No boy! I ain't gonna worry my life no more! Yea! Yea.!
You on my mind, every place I go
How much I love you, nobody knows
But someday baby
I ain't gonna worry my life any more
So that's my story, this is all I got to say to you
Goodbye baby, and I don't care what you do
But someday baby
I ain't gonna worry my life any more
Months later, Bill Gaither recorded a cover with an unknown pianist and a guitarist tentatively identified as Jesse Ellery.
Maceo's record was such a hit that Alan Lomax twice came across musicians who had learned it in the course of his 1942 field trip to Coahama County. The first was by David Edwards before he was nationally known. Lomax as usual coaxed an assured, spontaneous performance with Honeyboy showing off his guitar licks. Could they have been even more impressive under the pressures of a commercial contract and studio recording?
The second was by the relatively obscure pianist Thomas Jaybird Jones and the totally obscure singer Minnie Lee Whitehead. It's reissued on a Document collection of field recordings, but unfortunately not uploaded to YouTube ? and I don't know how to. This is a shame. It's good to hear a woman sing the song.
Brownie McGhee described the song as
'a good friend of mine's number but he's dead now, Big Maceo'. Yet in 1948 he recorded a very different
Worried Life Blues as an instrumental with Sonny Terry. And his
Brownie's New Worried Life with his brother Sticks was no closer. Still, ten years later, Brownie and Sonny performed this to an English audience. It's recognisably Maceo's song, but with one verse deriving ultimately from John Estes. And Brownie regularises the refrain slightly with a pause before
anymore.
(Also in 1948, Leadbelly also used the words
Ain't Gonna Let You Worry My Life No More to make a very different song.)
Around that time, Lightnin' Hopkins made at least two recordings of his personal take on the tune. They were issued and reissued under different titles such as
You're Not Going to Worry My Life Anymore (Worried Life Blues) or
Someday Baby or simply
Worried Life Blues. Sam brought a new (but changeable) set of verses to the song, with single-line guitar melodies that went way beyond Tampa Red's. This, I think, is the first of the recordings.
Now here's something' darlin', I want to tell to you
The low-down way you been doin', that will never do
But someday baby
I ain't going' to...
I started saying I aint going to worry about you baby, but you know I ain't
You went out late at night darlin', you stayed all night long
You come in this morning, and you act like you was grown
But someday baby
You ain't goin' to worry my life any more
I just got to play it right now
Yes but if I'd have died, yes when I was young
You know I wouldn't be here today, with this narrowest run
But someday baby
You ain't goin' to worry my life any more
Now here's something baby, I didn't think you would do
You did cause me to mistreat my home, on account of you
But someday baby
You ain't goin' to worry my life any more
Another (much less famous) Texas singer Manuel (Manny) Nichols recorded this 1949 cover of Maceo's song.
In 1950, Big Maceo recorded
Worried Life Blues No. 2, which is barely recognisable as the same song. Just cashing in on a successful title? Still, it's a nice record.
Lightnin' Hopkins also recorded a sequel,
New Worried Life Blues, which is actually a reversion to the original Big Maceo version.
As far as I can tell, he continued to record more or less the same version, under the title
Worried Life Blues.
There have been lots more recordings, mostly of the Maceo version. I'll leave you to post your favourites, but I feel I can't miss out this jaunty reworking of the Estes song by BB King. Unlike the Big Maceo tradition, it emphasises the off-beat, and it seems to have been an inspiration to some later performers.
More versions pease!
