The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #98071   Message #4169821
Posted By: GUEST
13-Apr-23 - 07:39 AM
Thread Name: Origins: You Are My Sunshine
Subject: RE: Origins: You Are My Sunshine
Oliver Hood was born in 1888 in Pittsburgh USA to a poor family. He was blind from birth but the thing that was on his mind was music there was no recordings to play music but the piano was a big thing in his time. In 1900 the blind school from Pittsburgh USA was a school that was so popular and had so many children. In 1913 he asked to be a teacher at the school and the success was great. One of his pupils was George Rice - he was so great at what he did and later became a singer in his own writing songs. In 1921 he was for the folk music scene putting new words to old songs set to the tunes of 18 century folk songs many country music singers like Vernon Dalhart, Riley Puckett and others. A song Hood did write that did not have claims of authorship was You Are My Sunshine the first 1933 vesion of this song by the Hood choir has now forgotten all because the words that were sung were not referring to what we know this song today. New techniques like talking computers fore the blind would not know Hood's first song at all. When Paul Rice wrote his new set of words in 1937 he wrote it on behalf of his wife going to hospital. The first recording was by the Pine Ridge boys in 1939 just a month later the Rise Brothers recorded it that recording is still available still to hear today. Hood knew Rice very well before he died in 1965 he was hearing storeys about Jimmie Davis saying to Paul Rice that Davis did have nothing to do with writing this song at all. This is the song that we know today was written by Rice