Art Gillham was a friend of Billy Smythe (William Peter Schmitt) and J. Scott Middleton's who helped them make up the lyrics for the "Hesitation Blues" that Smythe and Middleton published under their own names in 1915. The three friends were passing time in a train at the time, that day in about 1914. (They were using as a starting point a song that was going around that W.C. Handy, he admitted, also had heard somewhere, and also published his own, somewhat different version of in 1915.) Gillham's role was eventually officially acknowledged with his name added to the credits by about 1925.

Interestingly, Gillham told a friend of his, George Blau, that the following lyrics were not from folk tradition, Art made them up himself that day:

"If the river was whiskey and I was a duck, I'd swim to the bottom and never come up"

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, show me a woman/man a man/woman can trust"

---

Joseph, I think this message is better here, rather than off by itself in a thread of its own. Hope you don't mind that I moved it.
-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-