{"id":2245,"date":"2017-01-07T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=2245"},"modified":"2021-05-05T07:52:08","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T11:52:08","slug":"down-and-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Nobody Knows You When You&#039;re Down and Out\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/viIUTIg06EQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Most blues fans associate this song with Bessie Smith&#8217;s version from 1929 and think it was written about the Depression, but it was originally popularized in the early 1920s by its composer, Jimmie Cox. Like most of the first round of commercial blues performers, <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2276 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?resize=250%2C404&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"jimmie-cox-and-magnolia-cox-from-lynn-abbott\" width=\"250\" height=\"404\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?resize=186%2C300&amp;ssl=1 186w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>Cox tends to be left out of histories because he did not make any recordings, and records have become our way of connecting with that past. To paraphrase his biggest hit: &#8220;Nobody knows you when you don&#8217;t record&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cox&#8217;s father, J.T. &#8220;Polly&#8221; Cox, was a trap drummer in African American minstrel companies around the turn of the 20th century, and Jimmie worked with\u00a0 minstrel shows in his youth, became a well-known comedian (billed on some occasions as &#8220;the jig Charlie Chaplin&#8221;), and went on to\u00a0 produce and star in his own all-black revues, including the popular <em>Georgia Red<\/em> <em>Hots<\/em>. He often performed with his wife Anna Mae and daughter Gertrude &#8220;Baby&#8221; Cox (sometimes billed as &#8220;Baby Ernestine&#8221;), who would grow up to be a featured singer at the Cotton Club with Duke Ellington&#8217;s band.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville<\/em>, by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, provides a long-overdue view of the first generation of popular blues performers. One of the striking things it shows is <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-2283 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/original-blues-cover.jpg?resize=238%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/original-blues-cover.jpg?resize=238%2C300&amp;ssl=1 238w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/original-blues-cover.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 238px) 100vw, 238px\" \/>that virtually all of them were billed as comedians and the style was originally dominated by male stars, though many worked with female partners. Judging by reports in the black press, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, though already well-known, did not specialize in blues until a few years later, in the mid-teens &#8212; or at least were not described as singing blues before that period.<\/p>\n<p>Like other African American comedians, the pioneering male blues specialists worked in blackface and although they were often singled out for their deep connection to black vernacular culture, they seem to have owed as much to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/somebody-else-not-me\/\">Bert Williams<\/a> as to any rural southern tradition. A review of the team of Cox and Cox from 1913 (their names are given as Jimmie and Magnolia, and I&#8217;m not sure if this is Anna Mae under another name or an earlier partner)<del><\/del> described Jimmie as &#8220;a comedian who seems to have caught his cue from some odd looking member of his race that he might have seen on the streets,&#8221; adding, &#8220;He gets away from the stock make-up that many have&#8230; [and] has made it interesting because of the faithful imitation of what he has seen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cox introduced &#8220;Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out&#8221; in 1922 or &#8217;23, and Clarence Williams, who acquired the song&#8217;s publishing when he produced Bessie Smith&#8217;s recording, recalled:<br \/>\n<em>Jimmie was a great all-around entertainer and actor. . . He used to dramatize this blues of his with his girl partner &#8212; show how a man can fall out with his baby, hit the road, and get down sick with the TB. Then on his last go-round he\u2019d sing this number, and, man, he\u2019d make you believe it. Bessie Smith used to work with Jimmie on these shows. She learned the song from him and made a record of it. . . That record of Bessie\u2019s just went rolling around this old world.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It is not clear whether Cox sang all of &#8220;Nobody Knows You,&#8221; or performed the opening section as a recitation \u00e0 la Bert Williams, which is how I do it. One of the earliest recordings of the song, by Pine Top Smith, is recited with comic inflections, and<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-2370 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Howards-illustration-for-Nobody-Knows-You.jpg?resize=189%2C278&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"189\" height=\"278\" \/> Martin, Bogan, and Armstrong did a terrific recording in the 1970s that included an exaggeratedly doleful recitation with lines like:<br \/>\n<em><span data-ft=\"{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}\"><span class=\"UFICommentBody _1n4g\">You can be blind, maimed and cannot see,<br \/>\nBoth your legs could be cut off up above your knee,<br \/>\nYou could have the tuberculosis or the German flu.<br \/>\nDeath can be on your body playing Yankee Doodle-dee-doo&#8230;<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Variants of the lyric survived in black oral culture as a spoken &#8220;toast,&#8221; accruing extensive and often obscene interpolations, and I recently heard <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blindboypaxton.com\/\">Jerron Paxton <\/a>perform a spectacular version that started with Cox&#8217;s familiar verse and chorus, sung over piano accompaniment, then expanded into a gleefully profane recitation &#8212; which, as with much of Jerron&#8217;s work, I would guess is closer to the way a lot of honky tonk entertainers performed it in the 1920s than what was captured on the uniformly censored recordings of that period. I wish I could do it similar justice, but I picked it up from Dave Van Ronk and still do it pretty much as written. (Dave, incidentally, added a nice new intro that can be heard on his final recording, <em>&#8230;and the Tin Pan Bended and the Story Ended.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>As a final note: although many sources describe Bessie Smith as making the original recording of this song, Pine Top Smith&#8217;s preceded hers by a few months and the first recording was made in 1927 by Bobby Leecan, who sang a quite different lyric. Since there was no sheet music version, we have no way of knowing whether Leecan&#8217;s variant was his own rewrite, or was picked up from another entertainer, or may even have been Cox&#8217;s original lyric &#8212; which is an apt reminder of how little we know about the past in general, and early blues in particular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most blues fans associate this song with Bessie Smith&#8217;s version from 1929 and think it was written about the Depression, but it was originally popularized in the early 1920s by its composer, Jimmie Cox. Like most of the first round of commercial blues performers, Cox tends to be left out of histories because he did &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nobody Knows You When You&#039;re Down and Out - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nobody Knows You When You&#039;re Down and Out - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most blues fans associate this song with Bessie Smith&#8217;s version from 1929 and think it was written about the Depression, but it was originally popularized in the early 1920s by its composer, Jimmie Cox. Like most of the first round of commercial blues performers, Cox tends to be left out of histories because he did &hellip; Continue reading Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-07T12:00:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-05T11:52:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-07T12:00:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-05T11:52:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":901,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/12\\\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/\",\"name\":\"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out - Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/12\\\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-07T12:00:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-05T11:52:08+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/12\\\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?fit=250%2C404&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/12\\\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?fit=250%2C404&ssl=1\",\"width\":250,\"height\":404},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/down-and-out\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"description\":\"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\",\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"width\":70,\"height\":85,\"caption\":\"Elijah Wald\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out - Old Friends: A Songobiography","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out - Old Friends: A Songobiography","og_description":"Most blues fans associate this song with Bessie Smith&#8217;s version from 1929 and think it was written about the Depression, but it was originally popularized in the early 1920s by its composer, Jimmie Cox. Like most of the first round of commercial blues performers, Cox tends to be left out of histories because he did &hellip; Continue reading Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out &rarr;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/","og_site_name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","article_published_time":"2017-01-07T12:00:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-05-05T11:52:08+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Elijah Wald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ElijahWald","twitter_site":"@ElijahWald","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Elijah Wald","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/"},"author":{"name":"Elijah Wald","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"headline":"Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out","datePublished":"2017-01-07T12:00:15+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-05T11:52:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/"},"wordCount":901,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg","inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/","name":"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out - Old Friends: A Songobiography","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg","datePublished":"2017-01-07T12:00:15+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-05T11:52:08+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?fit=250%2C404&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?fit=250%2C404&ssl=1","width":250,"height":404},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/","name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9","name":"Elijah Wald","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","width":70,"height":85,"caption":"Elijah Wald"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3898,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":2245,"position":0},"title":"Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene, Ida Cox)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Along with all the great African American blues artists who recorded in the 1920s, there were also some interesting Euro-American players who came up with distinctive styles. The most famous was Jimmie Rodgers, but the best guitarists tended to come from around the mountain communities of Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/clarence-greene-300x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":836,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hes-jailhouse-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":2245,"position":1},"title":"He&#8217;s In the Jailhouse Now (Pink Anderson)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A popular ragtime song I learned from a wonderful record by Pink Anderson, with some cursory musings on politics and updated lyrics.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"American Street Singers","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/American-Street-Singers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1960,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/traveling-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":2245,"position":2},"title":"Traveling Man (Pink Anderson\/blues comedians)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm pretty sure I first heard this done by Paul Geremia, who recorded it on his first LP, and got some version of the lyric from Sing Out! magazine. I'm guessing Paul got it from Pink Anderson, but that's just a guess, since it was recorded by numerous blues and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"pink anderson bluesville lp","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/pink-anderson-bluesville-lp.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2779,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lovesick-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":2245,"position":3},"title":"Lovesick Blues (Hank Williams\/Emmett Miller)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Like virtually everybody, I first heard this as a Hank Willams song, though I'm not sure when or how. As I've mentioned, my Cambridge folk scene upbringing initially made me resistant to mainstream Nashville country music, Williams included, but by\u00a0 the early 1980s I was gradually coming to my senses\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/HankWilliams1952-286x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2703,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/any-old-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":2245,"position":4},"title":"Any Old Time (Jimmie Rodgers)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Living with the vagaries of the folk scene, I came late to Jimmie Rodgers -- not because he was obscure, but on the contrary because his albums were available on a major label, RCA, at a time when I was buying reissue records on labels like Folkways, Yazoo, and Arhoolie.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Maria-Muldaur-300x298.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4848,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2245,"position":5},"title":"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"This is probably my favorite Jimmie Rodgers song, which is saying a lot. I don't remember when I first heard one of Rodgers's records, but whenever it was, I already knew at least a couple of his songs. I'd learned \"Mule Skinner Blues\" from Cisco Houston and \"T. B. Blues\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2245"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4395,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions\/4395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}