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 then in 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 co-writer 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 that one has almost no similarity to Estes' song). Structurally and lyrically, Estes' original 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 re-recorded the song with its original lyrics for his Delmark LP The Legend of Sleepy John Estes. Ultimately, the song became so associated with Estes that it was used as 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' guitar playing is much more exciting: looser and more spontaneous-feeling, with two impressive 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 went on to become 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 B.B. King and Lightnin' Hopkins both sang "worry my life."  And, if there's any doubt remaining, on 7/5/73 you can hear someone (Kahn, I think?) 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, I suppose, given how well familiar Garcia was with 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 probable that Garcia knew of Hopkins' version of Someday Baby (he may well have had the 60's Crown lp) and possible that he might even have referred to it as a Hopkins song, which could be 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 am 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?]

June 1974 with Tony Saunders

your blogger's old cassette.  Oh, for the halcyon days of tape cuts and mislabeled songs.

Yeah!  Managed to slide in one more before 2018!  JGMF did the work years ago to establish the historical particulars of these gigs, so I won’t rehash those too much: here are his listening notes on 6/4/74, 6/5/74, and 6/6/74.  Notably, all three of these shows feature Merl’s son Tony Saunders on bass instead of John Kahn.  From a historical standpoint, Tony’s presence puts these in a grey area regarding the persnickety issue of “what band is this?,” a question blurred by the fact that Garcia was an apparently frequent guest at Merl’s own gigs around this time.  The particularities probably won’t be teased out any further than JGMF has already teased them.  I’m still tickled, however, by the image of Garcia rolling up to some bar with his guitar and amp in his trunk, then a week later playing at the Oakland Coliseum.

I wish I could find some older pictures of Tony and Merl, btw.  His first paid gigs as a teenager were with Garcia & Saunders.  This little pic of the two at Fantasy Studios is all I could find, from Tony’s site:

Gigs at the Lion’s Share were more laid back and off-the-beaten-path: most tapes of the few circulating shows there all have that flavor, and 6/4/74 may have the most of it, with a rich warm Betty Cantor recording to capture it all.  The uniqueness of some of the material is likely what marks this show for most folks, but the expansive nature of the playing earns its place on the list of the best of Garcia/Saunders 1974 shows.  Darben the Redd Foxx was a tune by saxophonist James Moody that seems to have had some pull with jazz musicians in the 1960’s but nevertheless seems like a totally left-field choice for this band.  They lay down a smooth, straight-down-the-middle midtempo swing that rolls along for 17 luxurious minutes; Garcia understandably sounds a little tentative at first, but he digs in and is on top of things by the time his second solo comes around.  Many heads don’t appreciate Martin Fierro’s playing and while he did have a tendency to overblow theatrically at times (which I imagine was probably much more effective in person than on tape), there’s none of that here: Fierro is totally in his element, unraveling cool, focused lines through his solos.  A very cool and unusual sound for these guys.  Tony and Bill Kreutzmann (I’m pretty sure it’s him) lay down a supremely bouncy groove to start Expressway, but halfway through they all fall into the trap of cycling endlessly through that descending chord progression “jam” with increasingly less and less to say, with Fierro and Garcia repeatedly deferring to the other and noodling around to no great purpose.  The rhythm section wins again, however, on a great Second That Emotion, better than most from this time.   Even better still is the magic they conjure on Merl’s Wonderin’ Why.  I always like the feel of this song, but this one is particularly satisfying as Garcia and Fierro weave circles around each other in the first main jam; their interplay here makes this one of the best versions I know.  A bluesy, blustery Soul Roach ends the first set.

To underscore the jazz club ambience, they pull out another rarity in Miles Davis’ classic All Blues, and Garcia et al follow the form of the tune, each taking a few choruses over the simple, timeless changes, at first resisting the urge to stretch.  But after returning to the melody, Garcia and Fierro start wandering off the page as Merl tries keeping it rooted to the changes, resulting in a gentle freeform tug of war that sounds great.  Martin brings it back home with another blues melody at the end [edit: I think he's playing the the main melody from the tune "One Mint Julep"] -- it’s a neat twist to end another long, relaxed jam that only could have happened at the Lion’s Share.  Local blues guitarist/singer Alice Stuart comes up to sing New York City (an “original” that’s not too far removed from Jimmy Reed) and the band sound great chomping down on a straight 12-bar blues.  The Harder They Come has a choppy, funky groove that works well, and they do better than usual with this one until a little “when/how do we end this?” snafu at the end. Then Dixie Down ends things on a soulful note.  It has its ups and down, but I’ll forgive a show like this its warts: much like 7/5/73, it may not rise to the tighter standard of other ‘best’ shows of the period, but its perfectly realized vibe and groove make it a real stand-out of the year.

City magazine June 1974, courtesy @joyatri_vintage

6/5/74, another fine Bettyboard, is missing its first set (the full tape seems to exist since we have a tantalizing setlist from, I presume, Rob Eaton).  Alice Stuart returns for the second set, this time with her guitar in tow — I wonder if she was the opening act for these two nights?  But, first, things get off to bumpy start: Fierro does no one any favors by test-driving some extreme electric effects on his flute on La-La which is, frankly, unlistenable.  The wahwah pedal was a component of his sound in 1974-75 (he, along with numerous other saxophonists, followed Eddie Harris’ example of using electric effects on their acoustic horn), but the effects really don’t work here.  Ouch.  Stuart evidently arrives onstage midway through Finders Keeepers: you can hear Betty adjust Garcia’s guitar in the mix @6:37 and Stuart takes the final solo.  It’s nothing all that inspired (and probably not what she usually played), but hearing another lead guitarist onstage with Garcia in this era is most unusual -- let alone a female lead guitarist at all -- so this certainly deserves a nod for historical importance.  Stuart doesn’t sound totally familiar with Dixie Down either, but she dishes it out on the blues chestnut Kansas City, adds a nice chicken scratch rhythm and some nice licks to another fine Harder They Come, and is in her element holding her own with Garcia on That’s All Right Mama.  Ultimately this set is more a curiosity than a must-hear, but this must be one of the last times on tape that we hear Garcia casually trading leads with another guitarist like this.  With some big doings on the horizon with that other band of his, Garcia must have been having a blast.

PS: after all this, I realized that there’s a video of Alice Stuart and her band at Winterland from 2/2/74 — haven’t checked it out yet, but I’m looking forward to.
http://www.concertvault.com/alice-stuart-and-snake/video/id-do-it-for-you_-1665489645.html

On 6/6/74 they were back at their homebase in Berkeley, with Tony still subbing for Kahn.  Rather than a Bettyboard, we are most fortunate to have a top-notch Louis Falanga aud recording that’s one of the best he made, with mics set up right by Garcia’s monitor (the soundman’s voice is audible a few times) yet capturing the whole band with a nice balance.  After some atmospheric banter about a buzzing light dimmer, a loose and somewhat sloppy Someday Baby lazily gets thing rolling, and Expressway follows a similar trajectory as 6/4, although Garcia leans into it harder as things start to sag and drives it home with a forceful ending.  From there on, however, it’s all gravy.  He Ain’t Give You None sits happily in a fat, wide groove, and My Funny Valentine (which is prefaced by Garcia, off mic, “we haven’t done that in a little while”) is a picture-perfect textbook version of this band’s signature jazz tune  without a stumble or any hint of dissonance or weirdness — not that I mind it when they took this one outside, but they really seem focused on getting the most from the material here.  A heated Second That Emotion (check Garcia’s final solo!) ends the first set.  The tape cuts back in with some spacey fooling around and Garcia chuckling loudly at Fierro’s noodling before the real bombs drop.  Merl’s My Problems Got Problems, only ever played a handful of times, was never done better than this: the groove is incredible right from the drop, and by 10 minutes it becomes so unmanageably funky and I won’t detail the kind of moves I’m making while I listen.  Talk about a stone cold killer!  21 minutes compared with the puny 8 minute version from a few weeks later.  As they futz around afterwards, Jerry says “oh hey, let’s do that, Tony… let Martin start it” and off they go into Darben the Red Foxx again, but with a different, more march-like, staccato rhythmic feel (more like the arrangement on various jazz records) and a tense, edgier feel overall.  Unlike the more leisurely 6/4 performance, Fierro brings it back to the melody after 11 minutes, then they float off into spacier realms, flirting with all-out dissonance over a terse, sparse groove for another 7-8 minutes before they play the melody again and end it for good.  A hare-brained and high-energy How Sweet It Is rounds out the night.  Incredible!  As tasty as the whole show is, the 40+ minutes of Problems/Darben is some of my favorite playing this band did during that great year.

Then, y’know, like 36 hours later, Garcia was at it again with the Dead throwing down one of the most bananas Playing in the Band jams of all time (and, incredibly, Louis Falanga was on the scene again -- the man deserves a medal!)  But I’ll leave you to peruse that one on your own.  All in a day’s work for 1974!

Elizabeth Cotten

My heavens, this FolkSeattle fellow has some amazing videos on the ol' youtube.  Some of these I'd seen before (this Lightning Hopkins one in particular is a must), but somehow I only just stumbled upon this:

My god.  I don’t listen to as much of this kind of thing as I should.  Garcia was a devoted fan and played "Freight Train" with Grisman a few times over the years.  And "Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie," of course.  "Freight Train" also made one solitary surprise appearance at an electric JGB show to cover some time while Kahn changed a bass string.  Blah blah blah.  Just watch this.

Ain't Got You > U.S. Blues?

Apropos of just posting a review of a July 4th show: the other night I'm sitting on the porch with a good friend and "U.S. Blues" comes on.  He casually remarks, "you know they totally stole this from Jimmy Reed?"  Oh really?  See what you think:

For you non-blues fans, Jimmy Reed's the guy who wrote "Baby, What You Want Me To Do," "Big Boss Man," and "It's a Sin."  Pretty foundational stuff for the Dead and for rock & roll in general.

white kids > the Dead > the blues

Speaking of the blues, I was rewatching the great documentary Chicago Blues (dir Harley Cokeliss) from 1972 which, besides featuring some amazing performance footage of some Chicago blues heavies, really hits hard on the issue of race.  Very powerful stuff, and still very relevant.  Heads up, though, for the guy discussing the appeal of the blues for white kids, starting around 26:40 in.  No big revelation that a lot of white kids discovered the blues through rock & roll, but the one example he brings up is the Dead covering Junior Wells, of all things (I presume he's talking about "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," not "Next Time You See Me"). 

To be fair, it's not an inappropriate link to make, though it's still a pretty random choice given the many, many, many other more obvious entry points that most rock fans had into the blues by 1972.  The Dead, at least, were public in their admiration for Wells' music: Garcia is very enthusiastic about Wells' amazing "Ships on the Ocean" on the guest DJ spot that he and Phil did for KMPX in 1967.  For what it's worth, that tune comes from the same album as Wells' version of Schoolgirl, Hoodoo Man Blues.  See the amazing Garcia's Record Collection post at deadessays for more blues influences.  Wells had also opened for the Dead at the Fillmore on Jan 13-14, 1967 in a trademark eye-popping Bill Graham triple bill with the Doors!

B.B. King RIP

RIP to a true icon of American music and a cornerstone of electric guitar playing.  Suffice it to say, almost nobody exemplified the "less is more" maxim than B.B. King.

JGB fans certainly know this one:

On official releases, it's usually credited to Lightnin' Hopkins, but this is clearly the version they're covering.  I can't remember which tape it is, but there's at least one recording where you can clearly hear someone (Kahn, I think) refer to this as a B.B. King tune.

And, while B.B. King didn't write or originally perform "The Thrill is Gone" either, it's another song that everyone associates with him.  Garcia sang this one as well.  I always think of Garcia/Grisman's work as casual get-togethers at Grisman's home studio, but I just remembered that actually made a real music video for this one.