This is presumably the song that Muleskinner (Richard Greene, Peter
Rowan, David Grisman, Clarence White, Bill Keith - plenty of Big Mon
alumni there) recorded as Blue And Lonesome. If so, any idea it would
be credited to Walter Jacobs on the record? Jacobs, of course, was
blues harmonica giant Little Walter who did record a song called Blue
And Lonesome, which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Muleskinner
track. The musicians involved would surely have known better,
especially as their version has a distictly Hankgrass flavour.
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Weisberger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 1999 4:46 PM
To: passenger side
Subject: RE: Hank & Big Mon collaboration?
> I'm about halfway thru Colin Escott's excellent Hank book and am
> intrigued by his mentioning a song that Hank and Bill Monroe wrote
> together. Since I don't have the book, I can't rememeber the name
> or the exact credit (credited to Ferlin B. Smith or some such), but
> I'd never heard this before. Anyone have any more info about this?
That's "I'm Blue, I'm Lonesome," credited to James B. Smith; Monroe, at
least, used a number of pseudonyms, including Joe Ahr and Albert Price.
Monroe recorded it on 2/3/50, with Jimmy Martin, Rudy Lyle on banjo,
Joel
Price on bass and Vassar Clements on the fiddle. Alison Krauss and Dan
Tyminski did an absolutely stunning version of the song on the Prime
Time
Country episode devoted to Monroe that was aired shortly after he passed
away.
"I worked 21 days with Bill, with Little Jimmy Dickens, got to ride the
bus
and sing with Hank Williams. Well, Hank sung a song about the lonesome
sigh
of a train going by, I'm blue, I'm lonesome too. And I learnt that
lonesome
touch from Hank Williams, I said to myself, I'm going to put a little
Hank
in his own song. And when Bill sang tenor, Bill would say, well, put as
of
that break in your voice like that and I'll put it in mine, you see." --
Jimmy Martin
It seems like I heard somewhere that Williams wrote the verse and Monroe
wrote the bridge, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
