"You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling", or "Love with a Feeling" as it was originally called, is a blues song first recorded by Tampa Red

Tampa Red

Tampa Red , born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an American Chicago blues musician....

 in 1938. Numerous blues artists have interpreted and recorded the song, including Freddie King

Freddie King

Freddie King , thought to have been born as Frederick Christian, originally recording as Freddy King, and nicknamed "the Texas Cannonball", was an influential African-American blues guitarist and singer. He is often mentioned as one of "the Three Kings" of electric blues guitar, along with Albert...

 who had a #92 Pop Hit

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 in 1961 with "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling".

Original song

Tampa Red recorded "Love with a Feeling" as a mid-tempo twelve-bar blues. Accompanying Red, who sang and played slide guitar, were Black Bob Hudson on piano and an unknown bass player. Although Tampa Red wrote several bawdy blues, "Love with a Feeling" is tame, with only one verse suggesting the more colorful versions to come:

Now the coppers brought her in, she didn't need no bail

She shook it for the judge, and he put the cops in jail

'Cause she shook it with a feeling, yes she shook it with a feeling

Yes she loves with a feeling, or she don't love at all

Not long after recording "Love with a Feeling", other blues artists began recording their versions of the song: Merline Johnson

Merline Johnson

Merline Johnson was an African American blues singer in the 1930s and 1940s, billed as The Yas Yas Girl.Little is known of her life, but she is thought to have been born in Mississippi. She was the aunt of rhythm and blues singer LaVern Baker. She first recorded in Chicago in 1937, on songs...

 (also known as "The Yas Yas Girl") (1938), Piedmont blues

Piedmont blues

Piedmont blues refers primarily to a guitar style, the Piedmont fingerstyle, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melody using the treble strings generally picked with the fore-finger,...

-singer Sonny Jones (1939), Tommy McClennan

Tommy McClennan

Tommy McClennan was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist.-Life and career:McClennan was born on a farm near Yazoo City, Mississippi, United States, and grew up in the town...

 (1940), and Brownie McGhee

Brownie McGhee

Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...

 (1946). In May 1950, Tampa Red recorded an updated version called "Love Her with a Feelin'". The song was performed as a Chicago-style blues with Tampa Red on electric slide guitar with piano, bass, and drum backing (RCA 50-0084). He also recorded it as a solo piece with vocal and electric guitar in 1961 for his Don't Tampa with the Blues album.

Freddie King version

On August 26, 1960 Freddie King recorded his version titled "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" for King Records

King Records (USA)

King Records is an American record label, started in 1943 by Syd Nathan and originally headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.-History:At first it specialized in country music, at the time still known as "hillbilly music." King advertised, "If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly -- If it's a Hillbilly, it's a...

. The song was released as the B-side of the "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" single on King Records subsidiary, Federal Records

Federal Records

Federal Records was an American record label founded in 1950 as a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records and based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was run by famed record producer Ralph Bass and was mainly devoted to Rhythm & Blues releases. But also hillbilly and rockabilly recordings were released,...

. Of the two songs, "You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling" was the only one to appear in the record charts, reaching #92 in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961.

Backing King (vocal and guitar) are Sonny Thompson

Sonny Thompson

Sonny Thompson was an American R&B bandleader and pianist, popular in the 1940s and 1950s.Born Alfonso Thompson in Centreville, Mississippi, he began recording in 1946, and in 1948 achieved two #1 R&B chart hits on the Miracle label – "Long Gone " and "Late Freight", both featuring saxophonist...

 (piano), Bill Willis (bass), and Phillip Paul (drums). Freddie King's version uses breaks where he sings the first four bars of each twelve-bar verse without the usual instrumental accompaniment. Most versions recorded after King follow this arrangement.

Other versions

Numerous versions have been recorded with a variety of titles, including those by Johnny Jones

Little Johnny Jones (pianist)

Little Johnny Jones was an American Chicago blues pianist and singer, best known for his work with Tampa Red, Muddy Waters and Elmore James.-Life and career:Jones was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1924...

 with Billy Boy Arnold

Billy Boy Arnold

Billy Boy Arnold is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter.-Biography:...

 (from Live in Chicago recorded 1963, released 1979); Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield

Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...

 (1970 Live, with additional tracks released 2007); Junior Wells

Junior Wells

Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...

 (Live at Theresa's 1975

Live at Theresa's 1975

Live at Theresa's 1975 is a live album released of material recorded by blues vocalist and harmonica player Junior Wells. This is the first live Wells album released by Delmark Records...

released 2006); Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...

, James Cotton

James Cotton

James Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time as well as with his own band.-Career:...

, and Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...

 (Breakin' It Up, Breakin' It Down recorded 1977, released 2007); Anson Funderburgh

Anson Funderburgh

Anson Funderburgh is an American blues guitar player and bandleader of Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets since 1978...

 (1985 She Knocks Me Out); Clarence Carter

Clarence Carter

Clarence Carter is a blind American soul singer and musician.-Life and career:Born in Montgomery, Alabama on 14 January 1936, Carter attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, Alabama, and Alabama State College in Montgomery, graduating in August 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree...

 (1985 Messin' with My Mind, a live version was released in 1994 on Live with the Dr.); Johnny Copeland

Johnny Copeland

Johnny Copeland was an American Texas blues guitarist and singer.-Career:Born in Haynesville, Louisiana, United States, while Copeland was becoming interested in music, he also pursued boxing, mostly as an avocation, and it is from his days as a boxer that he got his nickname "Clyde." Also as a...

 (1990 Live in Australia); Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

 (1994 Slippin' In); Taj Mahal

Taj 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...

 with Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

 (1996 Phantom Blues

Phantom Blues

Phantom Blues is an album by American blues artist Taj Mahal.-Track listing:# "Lovin' in My Baby's Eyes"# "Cheatin' on You"# "The Hustle Is On"# "Here in the Dark"# "Fanning the Flames"# "I Need Your Loving"# "Ooh Poo Pah Doo"# "Lonely Avenue"...

); Eddie "Guitar" Burns

Eddie "Guitar" Burns

Eddie "Guitar" Burns is an American Detroit blues guitarist, harmonica player, singer and songwriter...

(2002 Lonesome Feeling).