Post 353: 'CRAZY 'BOUT YOU' - FROM MCKINLEY TO TUBA SKINNY

'Jazz Gillum'

'Crazy 'Bout You' is a great little 16-bar number that seems simple enough to play, with a straightforward chord progression.

It appears to have been written in about 1935 by blues harmonica player William 'Jazz Gillum' McKinley, who recorded it in Chicago that year with The State Street Boys.

You can hear his recording on YouTube:

CLICK HERE.
I first heard the tune in its more recent performances by Tuba Skinny, with a great vocal from Erika Lewis. You can see Tuba Skinny perform it on YouTube:
CLICK HERE.

And you can see and hear them performing this song at the Umbria Jazz Festival at the start of 2016: CLICK HERE.

Tuba Skinny have also recorded it and you can hear their spirited performance on their CD, Owl Call Blues (released in August 2014).

The lyrics? On these lines:
Baby I'm crazy 'bout you
Don't like the way you do
Always mistreatin' me
Say that you love me too
Some day you'll want me
And I'll be far from you
Then you will be sorry babe
You do me like you do

A sad detail with which to end:

Poor William McKinley, the composer, was murdered at the age of 62, three years after he had retired from his career in music.

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FOOTNOTE
The book Enjoying Traditional Jazz, by Pops Coffee, is available from Amazon.

So is the book Tuba Skinny and Shaye Cohn.

Post 352: EIGHT-BAR TUNES; AND TUBA SKINNY

Tuba Skinny performing 'Owl Call Blues'

Tuba Skinny are fond of what I would describe as 'eight-bar melodies'. What I am referring to are themes of eight bars (measures), sometimes repeated, so you could say the tunes are either of eight bars or sixteen bars (often with a 'turn-around' in bars 7 and 8). A sixteen bar (8 + 8) example is Late Hour Blues - a song they introduced into their repertoire in April 2015.

I suppose this is inevitable with a band that garners so much of its material from the unsophisticated songs of the jug bands and blues guitarists of the 1920s and 1930s. They went in for simple, memorable themes that are really good to sing.

These eight-bar tunes (sometimes using only two chords and sometimes needing just four chords covering two bars each) have become specialities of Tuba Skinny's wonderful vocalist, Erika Lewis.

Not long ago, she added Untrue Blues to her eight-bar songs in a version that is remarkably faithful to the 1937 original by Blind Boy Fuller. Incidentally, Tuba Skinny play it in the key of A, which is awkward for some brass and clarinet players. Here's Erika: Click here to watch.

And here's the original by Blind Boy Fuller. He prefers the key of Bb: Click here.

But other Tuba Skinny numbers in this eight-bar category are:
Mississippi River Blues (Big Bill Broonzy, 1934)
Blue Spirit Blues (by Spencer Williams and famously recorded by Bessie Smith in 1929; it also has a 12-bar theme at the end)
Got a Mind To Ramble (Merline Johnson, 1930s)
Lonesome Drag (Tennessee Chocolate Drops, 1930; adapted by Erika Lewis)
Ice Man (Memphis Minnie, 1936)
Baby, Please Don't Go ('Big Joe' Williams, 1935) (Click here to watch video)
I'll See You in the Spring (The Memphis Jug Band, 1927)
Owl Call Blues (music by Shaye Cohn and words by Erika Lewis, 2014): you can watch Erika singing this haunting tune by clicking on here.

Papa, Let Me Lay It On You (Blind Boy Fuller, 1938) CLICK HERE for a video of this filmed by my friend David Wiseman.
Too Tight Blues (Blind Blake, 1927)
All I Want is a Spoonful (Papa Charlie Jackson, 1925)
You Gonna Quit Me, Baby (Blind Blake, 1927)
Jet Black Blues (Lonnie Johnson, 1929)

There's a lesson here for the rest of us. Maybe we should play more eight-bar tunes, especially if our band is lucky enough to have a singer.