Someday Baby: a proposal

 

Dunno what on earth possessed me to go down this rabbit hole today, but I saw the song Someday Baby credited, as it always is on Garcia releases, to Lightnin' (Sam) Hopkins, and something inside me snapped. I like Someday Baby. I like its sly little strut, and I like how it weaves its way periodically through Garcia's career, first as a regular thing for Garcia/Saunders, then with Reconstruction, and had brief spells with the JGB until 1991. I have probably said elsewhere that I take it as a good omen when it pops up in a JGB set, maybe a little sign that Jerry was feeling extra spritely that night (granted, this list doesn't necessarily prove that theory but, hey, um, never miss a Sunday show? whatever. I feel the same way about Money Honey).

Texas blues singer/guitarist Lightnin' Hopkins is always credited as the composer on official releases, although Deaddisc gives the composer of the song as Traditional / Sleepy John Estes / Lightning Hopkins, noting that "the song is attributed to Lightnin' Hopkins on the Garcia recordings but the origins of the song pre-date Hopkins."  But I propse that we go one step further and, for Garciacentric purposes, just credit Estes and his partner Hammie Nixon - not Hopkins at all.

Sleepy John Estes (1899-1977) first recorded Someday Baby Blues for Decca in 1935, accompanied by his longtime partner Hammie Nixon on harmonica, and both were credited as the songwriters. (note that Deaddisc lists one earlier Someday Baby by Buddy Moss, but there's almost no similarity to Estes' song). Structurally and lyrically, Estes' first version is essentially the same song that Garcia performed.  In 1938 Estes recorded an updated New Someday Baby, keeping the same structure and chorus, but changing all of the verses.  In 1962, post "rediscovery," he recorded the song with its original lyrics for his Delmark LP The Legend of Sleepy John Estes. The song was so associated with Estes that it became the epitaph on his gravestone.

Lightnin' Hopkins recorded his own Someday Baby in 1948 (this recording was reissued several times on LP by Crown, first in 1961).  His version is the same basic song as Estes' but with a new set of completely different verses and a slightly modified chorus (from "you ain't gonna worry my mind anymore" to "you ain't gonna worry my life anymore"). His unaccompanied performance is also quite different from Estes': imho, the lyrics aren't nearly as good, but Hopkins' playing itself is much more exciting: looser and more spontaneous-feeling, with two impressive guitar breaks.  Deaddisc has a handy list of further versions/variants of the song, including one that you may be familiar with: Muddy Waters' Trouble No More from 1955, which kept most of Estes' original lyrics intact, and, of course, became a staple for the Allman Brothers Band.

In 1960, B.B. King recorded Someday Baby for his My Kind of Blues LP (*see tangent below. Also, the LP was on Crown, the label that released Lightnin' Hopkins' 1948 recording in 1961). The arrangement is for a 4-piece band in King's trademark urbane style, but the song itself is the same as Estes' original 1935 recording, with nearly identical lyrics. King's record credits the songwriters as Estes/Nixon.

It is unmistakably B.B. King's version that Garcia "covered" with his own groups. Through various permutations from 1973-1991, Garcia's arrangement stayed basically the same as King's, from the opening lick, to the solo that precedes the first verse, to the way that Garcia phrases the line "you ain't gonna woorrrry my mind anymore."  The biggest difference, actually, is that Garcia often sang Estes' original line, whereas both B.B. King and Hopkins sang "worry my life."  And, if there's any doubt remaining, on 7/5/73 you can hear someone (Kahn?) say off-mic "let's do that B.B. King song" before they play it (see fileset 79032, track 1 @11:40; I'm not sure if this is edited out on the GarciaLive official release).

But every official Garcia release still credits the song to Lightnin' Hopkins. It's an understandable error, particularly given how well Garcia was connected to Hopkins' music (see here for two mentions); Garcia even said that Pigpen "picked up, just by watching and listening to me, the basic Lightnin’ Hopkins [guitar] stuff" (see here).  So it seems possible that Garcia knew Hopkins' version of Someday Baby (he may well have had the 60's Crown lp) and that he might even have referred to it as a Hopkins song, which is how it wound up being credited that way on Live at Keystone and every subsequent release. 

Authorship and attribution in the blues tradition can be a very murky issue, and I'm not saying that Estes is 100% responsible for the creation of the song. But he is absolutely responsible for the variant of it that came to Garcia via B.B. King - not Lightnin' Hopkins. So I nominate that henceforth everyone credit the song to just Estes/Nixon, not Hopkins.

* [sidenote/tangent: I can't help noticing that My Kind of Blues was released within a year of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (1959). The liner notes for My Kind of Blues (scans) devote a lot of space to discussing jazz, concluding that B.B. King is the exemplar of a "particular form of jazz." Genre, presentation, reception - ain't it a bitch?]