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- Thread starter BrutusMaximus
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Always loved the history of that song. Nobody knows who actually wrote it but it was a well known folk song/spiritual in early 20th century southern prisons sung by work gangs. Lead Belly popularized it with two different recordings of it in 1934 and again in 1940, but the first known commercial recording of it was in 1926 by Dave "Pistol Pete" Cutrell
And that folks, is Gmen's Blues History lesson for today.
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DubCoffman62
Lazy Slob
About 30 years ago I started going back and looking for original recordings and the roots of the various remakes that we listen to today. This was another favorite of mine
Kind of cool how Steely Dan interpreted the trumpet for guitar
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Yeah, a deep dive like that can really be surprising. So many songs that became famous by one artist were actually performed by someone else first. To me, it makes a difference if the newer artist gives credit to the original or not. Santana always gives credit to early Fleetwood Mack for "Black Magic Woman" Stevie Ray Vaughan idolized the early blues artists and always gave credit to them for the songs he covered, played them as an homage to them, and would try to perform with them if possible. The early Rolling Stones didn't consider themselves a "rock and roll" band but a blues band. They covered many blues artists, revered Howlin' Wolf, and even insisted that he appear with them on the TV show Shindig! Other British invasion band weren't so generous. The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin were notorious for ripping off other artists and wound up getting sued and losing. Jimmy Page even admitted in an early interview that he ripped off American Folk singer Jake Holmes pretty much note for note on the Yardbirds original arrangement of Dazed and Confused. Holmes had opened for the Yardbirds when Page first heard it.
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DubCoffman62
Lazy Slob
I love Led Zeppelin but they did take some serious liberties. I'm thinking that some of those writing credits have been corrected. Babe I'm Going to Leave You, Lemon Song, When The Levee Breaks... many more. A lot of British artists from that period blatantly ripped off older songs, Deep Purple even ripped off Ricky Nelson
I think Steely Dan blatantly ripped off this bass line to Rikki Don't Lose That Number
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