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Mississippi Blues

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blueshome:
Maybe old news - for months I've been trying to remember which Walter Davis track Willie Brown's Mississippi Blues is based on - unsurprising as I've tracked it down to Hard Times by Charlie Spand.

Bunker Hill:
Am I being my usual dense self or do you mean William, rather than Willie, Brown?

Bunker Hill:
Here's a quick transcription of the Spand song taken from a battered LP

Lord, the time is so hard, the birds refuse to sing.
Lord, the time is so hard, the birds refuse to sing.
And no matter how I try, I can't get a doggone thing.

Lord, I walked and I walked, but I cannot find no job.
Lord, I walked and I walked, but I cannot find no job.
Lord, I can't talk if I got no money and I sure don't want to rob.

I've got a woman that's hard to get along with, is a sittin' hen (??).
I've got a woman that's hard to get along with, is a sittin' hen. (??)
I can't cook me a square meal, honey, in god knows when.

Everybody cryin' "Depression", I just found out what it mean.
Everybody cryin' "Depression", I just found out what it mean.
It means a man ain't got no money, he can't buy no fresh collard greens.

(now trying to locate the record which contains a Spand number entitled Mississippi Blues...)

waxwing:
William Brown's Mississippi Blues was his reworking of the piano instrumental Sunrise Serenade, recorded a few years earlier by Frank (or Freddie?) Carle. I can't look it up right now but the info is in the River Of Song reissue of a lot of the Lomax recordings from the 1942 field trip.

All for now.
John C.

Bunker Hill:
I don't have that CD but I'm sure you are correct I can see it written somewhere in a discussion concerning the Brown tune that Sunrise Serenade was its inspiration being a million seller for Glen Miller on Victor in 1939. I think it was John Cowley writing in Blues World in late 60s.

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