Saturday 12 March 2011

"If You're Gonna Play It Out Of Tune, Play It Out Of Tune Properly" pt 3



Today we go right back to the birth of the blues for a track covered by the Fall. The track  Bourgeois Blues was written by Huddie Ledbetter about when he and his wife visited Washington in the thirties and the problems that they had trying to get a hotel. This was not due to some kind of biblical census but down to the fact that they were black.

I was introduced to Lead Belly in my early teens by the hippies I've mentioned a couple of times. I liked the songs on the album that Jim lent me,  the only problem being that it sounded as if it had been  recorded from the building next door to where Lead Belly was playing and the version of Bourgeois Town here shares that "authenticity".

Lead Belly - Bourgeois Blues


MES and the gruppe recorded the track for the 2001 album,  "Are You Are Missing Winner", a belter of a long player which contains no less than 3 covers and the lovely titled "Where's The Fucking Taxi? Cunt." On the album credits the writing for Bourgeois Blues is wrongly credited to Robert Johnson.

The Fall - Bourgeois Town

1 comment:

George said...

Never heard the original, looking forward to it. If you like southern soul, buy Sweet Inspiration, the songs of Dann Penn and Spooner Oldham. It is absolutely immense. I'm only on track 13, and it keep getting better. You will not regret it.