Robben Ford Discussion

[GraemeD]

Hi

So who did write 'Wild About You' ?
My copy of 'Talk to your Daughter' gives no song writing credits, but I can't imagine that Robben would claim the song to be his, and it certainly wasn't written by Christine McVie.
Sonny Boy Williamson ??

Allmusic.com credits a version of 'Crazy about You' to a 'Willie Williamson' but has no details about this person !!

...just interested !!!

Cheers

Graeme

[UncleSalty]

I'm pretty sure it's a Little Walter song, although the Walter version is called Can't Hold Out Much Longer. I remember reading somewhere - probably in Guitar Player - Robben saying it was a Walter tune. There may well be other versions of course...

[groucho]

That tune - like most blues tunes - has a sort of "evolving" history.

Robben's version is clearly based on the Little Walter tune "Can't Hold Out Much Longer" (although Walter's version is a mid-tempo thing very different from Robben's horn-driven boogie).

However, Walter's version is modeled on John Lee Williamson's (or: Sonny Boy #1) song "Black Gal", where the chorus is "I'm just wild about you black gal".

Apparantly Walter was in the studio fooling around with cutting that tune and the Chess brothers told him "you can't be saying black gal!", so he kinda improvised his way into a slightly different song, lyrically.

Pretty much all blues songs after about 1940 were re-workings of earlier tunes. This didn't stop the "reworkers" from claiming writing credit on the new versions of course. Of course when the British rockers started ripping off THOSE versions, then it was lawsuit time.

However 90% of modern blues songs have their origin in either the work of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Patton or John Lee Williamson - & none of them got a single songwriting royalty!

Okay, that's probably way more info than you needed.

Chris

[BlueRunner]

groucho: Welcome aboard! And what can you tell us about yourself? (From your Profile, you're definitely a Man (or Woman) of Mystery.)

Interesting info in the history of the tune. I can hear Leonard Chess saying that to Little Walter, although not in such gentile language.

The "reworking" thing is the result of nearly all Blues coming from one or two themes. Reminds me of a remark by David Hamburger in his intro to one of his numbers, in which he claims that during a certain period of American popular music there were only two themes: Young women led into lives of degradation by unfaithful men ... and chickens. He then proceeds to sing a tune featuring two chickens.
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- BlueRunner

[frank0936]

I've heard David make that same remark, and do the song about the chickens. He's probably not far off the mark.
Frank

[BlueRunner]

Not far off the mark at all. About two weeks after my wife and I first heard the David Hamburger CD, we were at a local Farmers Market, where an "old-timey" group (e.g., banjo, resonator, fiddle, accordian etc.) was performing. We walked by as they were tuning between numbers, and I remarked to my wife, "Gee, I wonder if they're going to do any songs about chickens?" And by golly, they launched right into a number about "two chickens did this -- two chickens did that."

Even though I grew up on a farm and was exposed to music back when people played piano in the parlor and before Leo Fender ever built an electric guitar, I still have no idea what the deal was with the chickens. Once of life's great mysteries, I presume. (Millenia from now, when things like the recently translated Gospel of Judas are old hat, scholars will still be debating, "What WAS that thing about the chickens???")

As for great blues themes, nothing tops Doug MacLeod's little 24-second ditty entitled "The Last Blues Song Ever Wrote." It's ONLY lyrics go, "I didn't wake up this morning ...."
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- BlueRunner

[GraemeD]

Hi

Thanks for your replies.

.....but what did I start !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Graeme

[JohnnyZ]

Yabbut, did any of these chicken songs explore or explain the eternal mystery of the chicken or the egg being first? C'mon, I can't imagine the Country & Western music scene being totally silent on this very issue...

[groucho]