Statesboro Blues
Encyclopedia
"Statesboro Blues" is a blues song
in the key of D written by Blind Willie McTell
; the title refers to the town of Statesboro, Georgia
. Covered by many artists, the version by The Allman Brothers Band
is especially notable and was ranked #9 by Rolling Stone
in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time. In 2005, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ranked "Statesboro Blues" number 57 on its list of 100 Songs of the South.
, appear to relate the story of a man pleading with a woman to let him in her house; the speaker calls himself "Papa McTell" in the first stanza ("Have you got the nerve to drive Papa McTell from your door?"). Throughout the song, the woman, addressed as "mama," is alternately pleaded with (to go with the speaker "up the country") and threatened ("When I leave this time, pretty mama, I'm going away to stay"). Throughout the non-linear narrative, the "Statesboro blues" are invoked—an unexplained condition from which the speaker and his entire family seem to be suffering ("I woke up this morning / Had them Statesboro blues / I looked over in the corner: grandma and grandpa had 'em too"). Later versions, such as the one played by The Allman Brothers Band, have shorter, simplified lyrics.
As with many blues lyrics, it can be difficult to establish rules for the narrative order of the stanzas. In the case of "Statesboro Blues," Richard Blaustein attempted a structural analysis of McTell's song in an approach influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss
; it is unclear whether his results are applicable to other blues songs also.
McTell borrowed part of the lyrics from a 1923 Sippie Wallace
recording of "Up the Country Blues," which was later popularized by Canned Heat
as "Goin' up the Country
."
, though in an interview he called Statesboro "my real home." McTell made the first recording of the song on Victor
, on October 17, 1928 (Victor #38001). The eight sides he recorded for Victor, including "Statesboro Blues," were described as "superb examples of storytelling in music, coupled with dazzling guitar work."
by many other artists, including John Mayall
, Dave Van Ronk
, Chris Smither
, David Bromberg
, Brooks Williams
, Alice Stuart
, Deep Purple
and The Devil Makes Three
.
made a "wonderful modernized version" on his eponymous 1968 debut album
. His arrangement is credited with inspiring The Allman Brothers Band.
The most familiar version of the song is by The Allman Brothers Band, as recorded at the Fillmore East
in March 1971 and first released on the 1971 album At Fillmore East
. This version is famous also for Duane Allman
's slide guitar
playing, which, as Rolling Stone
would write years later, featured "the moaning and squealing opening licks [that] have given fans chills at live shows."
Allman's slide riffs on "Statesboro Blues" have been analyzed and transcribed in guitar magazines many times over and the tones of Allman and Dickey Betts
's guitars on the song were hailed by Guitar Player
as some of the "50 Greatest Tones of All Time." After Allman's death in a motorcycle
accident later that year, the performance was included on the 1972 album Duane Allman: An Anthology. In 2008, Rolling Stone
magazine ranked The Allman Brothers Band's version of "Statesboro Blues" as #9 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.
The song is still a staple of The Allman Brothers Band's live shows, now often with Derek Trucks
on slide. Dickey Betts also continues to play the song live.
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
in the key of D written by Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell , was an influential Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues, although, unlike his contemporaries, he used exclusively a twelve-string guitar...
; the title refers to the town of Statesboro, Georgia
Statesboro, Georgia
Statesboro is a city in southeast Georgia, United States, and is the county seat and most populous city of Bulloch County. Statesboro has a population of 28,422 and the Statesboro, GA Micropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 70,217...
. Covered by many artists, the version by The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...
is especially notable and was ranked #9 by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time. In 2005, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only major daily newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and its suburbs. The AJC, as it is called, is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the result of the merger between The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta...
ranked "Statesboro Blues" number 57 on its list of 100 Songs of the South.
Lyrics
The lyrics, a first-person narrativeFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
, appear to relate the story of a man pleading with a woman to let him in her house; the speaker calls himself "Papa McTell" in the first stanza ("Have you got the nerve to drive Papa McTell from your door?"). Throughout the song, the woman, addressed as "mama," is alternately pleaded with (to go with the speaker "up the country") and threatened ("When I leave this time, pretty mama, I'm going away to stay"). Throughout the non-linear narrative, the "Statesboro blues" are invoked—an unexplained condition from which the speaker and his entire family seem to be suffering ("I woke up this morning / Had them Statesboro blues / I looked over in the corner: grandma and grandpa had 'em too"). Later versions, such as the one played by The Allman Brothers Band, have shorter, simplified lyrics.
As with many blues lyrics, it can be difficult to establish rules for the narrative order of the stanzas. In the case of "Statesboro Blues," Richard Blaustein attempted a structural analysis of McTell's song in an approach influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
; it is unclear whether his results are applicable to other blues songs also.
McTell borrowed part of the lyrics from a 1923 Sippie Wallace
Sippie Wallace
Sippie Wallace was an American singer-songwriter. Her early career in local tent shows gained her the billing "The Texas Nightingale". Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded over 40 songs for Okeh Records, many written by herself or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas...
recording of "Up the Country Blues," which was later popularized by Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
as "Goin' up the Country
Going Up the Country
"Going Up the Country" is a song performed by the American blues-rock group Canned Heat. It appeared on their album Living the Blues and was also released as a single, reaching #11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, #19 on UK Singles Chart and number one in 25 other countries...
."
Blind Willie McTell's original recording
Because of the song, rumor had it that McTell was born in Statesboro; he was, in fact, born in Thomson, GeorgiaThomson, Georgia
Thomson, incorporated February 15, 1854, is a city in McDuffie County, Georgia, United States. The population was 6,828 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of McDuffie County. Thomson's nickname is "The Camellia City of the South", in honor of the thousands of camellia plants...
, though in an interview he called Statesboro "my real home." McTell made the first recording of the song on Victor
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
, on October 17, 1928 (Victor #38001). The eight sides he recorded for Victor, including "Statesboro Blues," were described as "superb examples of storytelling in music, coupled with dazzling guitar work."
Cover versions
The song has since been coveredCover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by many other artists, including John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
, Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
, Chris Smither
Chris Smither
Chris Smither is an American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, modern poets and philosophers.-Early life, influences and education:...
, David Bromberg
David Bromberg
David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the...
, Brooks Williams
Brooks Williams
Brooks Williams is an American acoustic guitarist and singer/songwriter. His style combines roots, jazz, blues, classical, and folk...
, Alice Stuart
Alice Stuart
Alice Stuart is an American blues and folk singer-songwriter and guitarist. She toured the UK with Van Morrison and throughout the United States with Mississippi John Hurt....
, Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
and The Devil Makes Three
The Devil Makes Three (band)
The Devil Makes Three may refer to:* The Devil Makes Three , an American band* The Devil Makes Three , a 1952 film...
.
Taj Mahal (1968)
Taj MahalTaj Mahal (musician)
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
made a "wonderful modernized version" on his eponymous 1968 debut album
Taj Mahal (album)
Taj Mahal is the debut American blues album by Taj Mahal.-Track listing:# "Leaving Trunk" – 4:51# "Statesboro Blues" – 2:59# "Checkin' Up on My Baby" – 4:55...
. His arrangement is credited with inspiring The Allman Brothers Band.
The Allman Brothers Band (1971)
Fillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...
in March 1971 and first released on the 1971 album At Fillmore East
At Fillmore East
At Fillmore East is a double live album by The Allman Brothers Band. The band's breakthrough success, At Fillmore East was released in July 1971. It ranks Number 49 among Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and remains among the top-selling albums in the band’s catalogue...
. This version is famous also for Duane Allman
Duane Allman
Howard Duane Allman was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary co-founder of the southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band...
's slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
playing, which, as Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
would write years later, featured "the moaning and squealing opening licks [that] have given fans chills at live shows."
Allman's slide riffs on "Statesboro Blues" have been analyzed and transcribed in guitar magazines many times over and the tones of Allman and Dickey Betts
Dickey Betts
Forrest Richard "Dickey" Betts is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and also won with the band a best rock performance Grammy Award for his...
's guitars on the song were hailed by Guitar Player
Guitar Player
Guitar Player is a popular magazine for guitarists founded in 1967. It contains articles, interviews, reviews and lessons of an eclectic collection of artists, genres and products. It has been in print since the late 1960s and during the 1980s, under editor Tom Wheeler, the publication was...
as some of the "50 Greatest Tones of All Time." After Allman's death in a motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
accident later that year, the performance was included on the 1972 album Duane Allman: An Anthology. In 2008, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine ranked The Allman Brothers Band's version of "Statesboro Blues" as #9 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.
The song is still a staple of The Allman Brothers Band's live shows, now often with Derek Trucks
Derek Trucks
Derek Trucks is a Grammy Award-winning, American guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He founded The Derek Trucks Band and worked as a session musician when he was still in his early teens. Throughout those teenage years, he toured with The Allman Brothers Band primarily as a slide...
on slide. Dickey Betts also continues to play the song live.