The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40592 Message #4193829
Posted By: Eric Levy
18-Dec-23 - 11:46 AM
Thread Name: Origins: I Know You Rider
Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
Well, it’s been over 22 years since this discussion began, 16 years since I last participated in it, and there have only been five new posts in the last 13 years. But this online discussion forum remains the place to go to learn about the roots of I KNOW YOU RIDER. The site continues to be cited and referred to and is a primary source of information in many places, including YouTube and Wikipedia, so it is clearly still being visited. Well done contributors!
But the research into the history of the song has continued, and some of the information provided here is out of date or outright wrong, including information that I originally provided. Since this Discussion Board continues to be referenced, I wanted to set the record straight about some of the mistakes and provide an update on all that’s happened since the last posts. So I hope that people just discovering this Discussion Board are reading to the end.
Part of the reason I hadn’t contributed to this thread for so long was that it really felt like we had done all the research that was possible 13 years ago. There were still many unanswered questions: Who was the unnamed 18-year-old woman from the Lomax book? From whom did Joan Baez learn the song? And how exactly did the song make its way to Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead? Some of these question are still unanswered and probably unanswerable, but quite unexpectedly a wealth of exciting new information regarding the history of I KNOW YOU RIDER was revealed in the last two months of 2023.
But first, to respond to and expand on several posts above:
Back on 29 Oct 01, Pete Peterson wrote in the third post on this site that Tossi Aaron’s album featuring I KNOW YOU RIDER was released “in about 1962.” We now think it was 1961, but it was not 1960 as I claimed in a later post. Also on 29 Oct 01, JudyR posted about the “song which all the coffee house singers were doing in the early 60's.” Also true and a more important point than we might have realized at first (see below).
Then three and a half years later on 25 Apr 05, Bob Coltman joined the discussion, explaining, “As far as I know, I'm the guy that started the ‘I Know You Rider’ chain… So far as I'm aware no earlier version was in circulation before mine.” Both of these claims are also true (more or less, see below), as has been confirmed in many places since then.
Coltman in his 10 Jan 06 post writes, “The next breakout singer to record it was James Taylor in, I think, 1967.” It was actually 1968, when Taylor’s self-titled debut album was released (on the Beatles’ Apple Records!). The four verses that Taylor sings are all derived from the extra verses in the Lomax book, so it is definitely the same song, but Taylor’s rendition is more of an adjunct to the main tradition of the song as his is titled “Circle Round the Sun” and doesn’t feature the signature “I know you rider” verse.
Coltman: “Janis Joplin got the song almost simultaneously, perhaps from James, or vice versa. Her source could, I think, have been someone on the West Coast who'd heard it from me, or could have been James. Janis, blues freak that she was, was presumably Jerry Garcia and the Dead's source, perhaps via Jorma Kaukonen who was the real blues fanatic in that crowd.”
The only known—certainly the only released—recording of Janis Joplin doing the song is a live version by Big Brother and the Holding Company from 1966. Where Janis learned the song will likely remain another mystery, but she definitely was not Jerry Garcia’s source for the song. As Johnny Harper says in the very first post in this discussion, the Byrds recorded the song in 1966 as well—a studio version that wasn’t released until much later, as Harper points out. But as I mentioned in a much later post on 06 Feb 07, the Grateful Dead first recorded the song in 1965 when they were still called the Warlocks. The details of the history of the song for the Grateful Dead are worth a brief explanation.
The first significant (and sanctioned) recording of I KNOW YOU RIDER by the Grateful Dead is of course on their legendary triple album EUROPE ’72, so most people—most non-Deadheads anyway—likely assumed that the song began that year for the Dead. Not true at all. The Warlocks—using yet another band name on this one occasion, “The Emergency Crew”—spent a single day (November 3, 1965 to be exact) recording six songs at the tiny Golden State Studios in San Francisco. Only two of these songs would extend into their subsequent repertoire: the original CAUTION (DO NOT STOP ON TRACKS) and I KNOW YOU RIDER. The Golden Gate recordings would later be officially released on the album BIRTH OF THE DEAD in 2001, though they were a heavily traded tape among collectors for years prior to that. There are a handful of known 1966 live performances of I KNOW YOU RIDER by the band that was by then called the Grateful Dead. The song then disappears from the repertoire until 1969, when it is first paired with the Dead original CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER.
There are a handful of 1970 acoustic performances by the Grateful Dead, in a vastly different arrangement and divorced from CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER, but otherwise, with the barest exceptions, I KNOW YOU RIDER was always performed as part of a two-song medley with CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER. Deadheads colloquially refer to the pair as “China/Rider.”
The song is mysteriously dropped from the band’s live repertoire after the 1974 hiatus. Then, after a single 1977 performance, the song returns to frequent rotation in 1979 and remains there until the end in 1995, with altogether over 500 performances and the song ranking in the top-ten most played Grateful Dead songs. End of Grateful Dead history.
Another post on 10 Jan 06 by jaze is the first to mention Joan Baez’s recording. jaze is correct that Baez recorded the song at the same session for what became her self-titled debut album—19 songs recorded in a single afternoon in the summer of 1960, though I KNOW YOU RIDER didn’t end up on the album at the time, and wasn’t released until 2001. (Baez was no doubt performing the song back then though.) So unless another recording happens to turn up, Baez was the first to record the song, not Tossi Aaron or any of the others. More on this in a moment.
Also on 10 Jan 06 in the discussion, Wayne Mitchell mentions the Serendipity Singers’ recording of the song. Different online sources give 1964 or 1965 for the date of their album. Wayne asks if their non-Lomax verse appears anywhere else. It does in the Big Three’s 1963 recording, which is the clear inspiration for the Serendipity Singers’ version. Both groups shortened the song’s title to RIDER, which the Kingston Trio did too.
Coltman wrote on 13 Jan 06: “I was in the army and out of folk song circles c. 1960-63, which must have been the song’s later circulating years, that's the piece I know least about.” It turns out that piece is huge! It was during those years that the song became so popular, with ten different recordings that we know of, plus countless live performances at folk festivals, in folk clubs and coffee shops, and at parties all over the country. Various reports claim that John Phillips, Bonnie Dobson, and Judy Collins all performed the song during those years (though none of them recorded it). So Coltman’s stint in the army exactly coincided with the song’s explosion in popularity, which Coltman created but largely missed. This could explain why he jumps from Tossi Aaron’s recording in 1961 to James Taylor’s in 1968, though Coltman does acknowledge how the song expanded in so many ways in his subsequent posts.
On 10 Feb 07, Mudlark mentions the recording of I KNOW YOU RIDER by Joel Cory & George McKelvey, which they called GONNA MISS YOUR LOVIN’ PAPA. Excellent addition Mudlark! Always exciting to discover another 1963 recording (the liner notes explain that the album was recorded in March of that year, and discogs.com confirms 1963 as the year of release). I just got my hands on this record, and it’s a lovely, slowed-down version.
For thorough, though not necessarily complete, lists of the early recordings of the song see:
I joined the above conversation in early 2007. On 02 Mar 07, I mention my first phone conversation with Tossi Aaron and said, “she did confirm that her album was recorded before Joan Baez's first album, so we can finally put to rest who did the first recording. As Bob suggested above, it was definitely Tossi.” It turns out this was incorrect. Tossi’s memory was less reliable than I had hoped, and I based my post on what she told me. But she and I corresponded for many years, and she mailed me photocopies of clippings she had saved for all these years. One of these was a handwritten note by Joan Baez complimenting Tossi on her debut album. Others were album reviews and notices about concerts. From all of these, we determined that Joan’s debut album did indeed precede Tossi’s. I don’t know why I didn’t post this at the time. I should have, and I’d like to apologize now for not setting the record straight earlier, especially because Tossi’s recording being the first, and the incorrect recording date of 1960, have been spread all over the internet, including YouTube and Wikipedia, as well as numerous Grateful Dead websites. As I recall, Tossi and I settled on 1962 as the release date (nothing could be established definitively), but the online Prestige Records discography I cited in my 23 Feb 07 post has since added dates to the albums that were then missing a date, and lists Tossi’s as being released in 1961:
So, unless another newly discovered, unexpected recording turns up, it is now safe to say that Joan Baez did the first recording, and Tossi Aaron did the second, but Tossi’s was the first to be released. Tossi Aaron passed away in March 2018. I deeply regret that we had fallen out of touch a few years before then. Luckily her legacy lives on, thanks in part to this forum.
I believe that answers all of the questions and corrects all of the misinformation. Now for the new information.
In November 2023, I discovered two more early recordings of the song that were completely off anyone’s radar. One is called I LOVE MY BABY by David Gude from the 1962 various artists album NEW FOLKS:
Like James Taylor would six years later, Gude changed the title of the song and skips the signature “I know you rider” verse. But the three verses he does sing are from the Lomax book, so it definitely counts as another early version of the song. Gude’s is clearly patterned on Joan Baez’s rendition. The liner notes to the NEW FOLKS album—on Baez’s label Vanguard—explain that Gude and Baez were friends and even collaborators, so it makes sense that he learned it from her even though her recording hadn’t been released at the time.
And it was Gude’s recording that inspired a 16-year-old high school senior named Martha Gerenbeck to also record the song—title and first verse restored—in 1962. She and some friends recorded an album of their favorite folk songs called GREEN TREES AND BLUE WATER, which was released in 1963:
Only 125 copies were ever pressed. And I have to thank my good friend Roger Phenix, who also appears on the album, for letting me know about it and generously giving me a copy.
These discoveries were what inspired me to re-open my long-dormant inquiry into the roots of the song. After I told Roger about all that I had discovered years ago—much of which comes from this Discussion Board—he started helping me with my research. This led him to Felicity Ford, who was involved in a knitting project inspired by the song. Yes, you read that correctly, knitting:
In his 03 Feb 06 post, Bob Coltman wrote: “I've never doubted the female prisoner DID make the verse up herself. I surely hope so. I wish we had a chance to hear what else she sang.” Quite unexpectedly, that wish came true. Felicity Ford seems to be the one who made the biggest discovery yet.
When the Lomaxes, and other musicologists of the era, “collected” songs, that sometimes meant recordings, like with Lead Belly, to name the most famous example, but more often it just meant transcribing lyrics. Everyone always assumed that this is what happened with our mystery 18-year-old woman’s verse. It turns out we were wrong. She was incarcerated in the Mississippi State Penitentiary, known then and now as Parchman Farm. And her song was indeed recorded on August 9th, 1933 in the sewing room of the women’s camp. Luckily that recording is available for free on the Lomax Digital Archive:
As you can see, the song was titled PRISON RIDER BLUES, which could explain why no one had discovered it until now (I don’t know how long the Archive has been available online). And as if hearing the recording wasn’t exciting enough, she actually sings three additional verses that are not included in the Lomax book! The familiar “I know you rider” verse is the fourth. Here are her complete lyrics (helps to read along as you listen):
…Rider where have you been so long? Oh rider rider rider rider where have you been so long? Yeah I ain’t had no lovin’ baby rider since you been gone
I’m-a wake up in the mornin’ baby ’n I ain’t gon’ say a word I’m-a wake up in the mornin’ baby ’n I ain’t gon’ say a word I’m-a eat my breakfast baby over in sweet ol’ Hattiesburg
Babe that little bell keeps a-ringin’ and that little bell she sadly tone Yeah that big bell keeps a-ringin’ and little bell she sadly tone Yeah I’m-a lonely lonely lonely now I’m a long way from home
I know you rider gonna miss me when I’m gone I know you rider gonna miss me when I’m gone You gonna miss your little mama baby from rollin’ in your arms
Needless to say this was a staggering discovery! Of course it also raised some new questions: Why did the Lomaxes just include the last verse in their book? Where did these additional verses come from? Before I answer that question, I want to revisit Jerry Garcia and how he learned the song.
Since re-opening my investigation into the song last month, I’ve been in touch with several people, including Jody Stecher, who was in the Asphalt Jungle Mountain Boys with Jerry Garcia in 1964. Jody explained that the song was literally everywhere in the early-to-mid ’60s. Stecher e-mailed me: “There’s no mystery. The song was ubiquitous in the early 60s. It was really all about a chord sequence rather than the words. It got into Jerry’s repertoire the same way Three Blind Mice did. It was unavoidable. How it became that way is a different matter and I don’t know the answer. It was a staple of folk groups and soloists alike.” Stecher’s point is echoed by many of the other people I’ve been in contact with.
Jerry himself confirms this in an interview for the series THE HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL (edited slightly for clarity): “It’s an old folk song. I mean it used to be like a standby, really, in the coffee houses and stuff like that. I never performed it as a bluegrass person. I never was a folkie very much. I just wasn’t that good. I mostly played in bands with other people. But I always liked that song no matter who did it. And there were all these folk versions of it that were really modern versions. Of the ones that I could remember, the arrangements, the versions of it, melodically and as far as the chord structure and so forth, that was the one that I sort of called from my own memory. I don’t remember where I learned it. I don’t remember who taught it to me or why I chose it, except it’s just a nice song, and I thought it would be ideal to do with an electric band.”
In corresponding with Jody and hearing what Jerry had to say, I now feel that our earlier attempts to isolate where Jerry may have learned the song—a Joan Baez performance, Tossi Aaron’s album, etc.—were misguided. The song was everywhere. Jerry probably didn’t remember who taught it to him because no one did teach it to him. It was just in the air.
Back to the roots of the song:
In his 10 Jan 06 post, Bob Coltman wrote, “There is, I think I can state categorically, no other source or root for this song apart from Lomax and me. I have never heard any other song that could be credibly a version of it.” He then continued on 18 Jan 06: “I think the reason ‘I Know You Rider’ is a tough song to trace is that it really only exists in the Lomax version, in mine, and in the various versions that stem from mine. I have found no others, and believe me, I have heard nearly all of the blues issued on record, and seen nearly all of the blues printed by folk song collectors as found c. 1900-1940, and believe me if I had spotted a relative, I would have noticed.”
I KNOW YOU RIDER has indeed been “a tough song to trace,” but after the revelation that the recording of the young woman existed and was accessible, a Grateful Dead blogger named Caleb Kennedy made a remarkable discovery! It turns out the young woman didn’t come up with the lyrics herself. Nor was she singing some old traditional spiritual passed down through many generations. She was singing a song that was just three years old at the time and a regional hit in Mississippi called NO SPECIAL RIDER BLUES by pianist and singer Eurreal “Little Brother” Montgomery whose career was just beginning but would last decades. You can hear his song here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi4MO3LpSxU
Caleb goes into exhaustive and fascinating detail about all of this here:
https://deadessays.blogspot.com/2023/12/
So I think it's now safe to say the early history of the song goes:
1930: Little Brother Montgomery records NO SPECIAL RIDER BLUES 1933: The young woman is recorded singing the Montgomery song, which gets titled PRISON RIDER BLUES 1934: The Lomaxes publish the expanded lyrics under the title WOMAN BLUE 1957: Bob Coltman discovers the song in the Lomax book, starts performing it on the East Coast and soon elsewhere (Coltman himself told me that the year was 1957) 1960: Joan Baez records I KNOW YOU RIDER (unreleased until 2001) 1961: Tossi Aaron records I KNOW YOU RIDER (first release of the song) 1962: David Gude records I LOVE MY BABY, Esther Halpern and Martha Gerenbeck each record I KNOW YOU RIDER 1963: Recordings by Judy Henske, Joel Cory & George McKelvey, The Big Three, The Kingston Trio (likely in that order) 1964: The folk floodgates 1965: The Warlocks are the first to give the song a rock setting
Of course, with the exception of Coltman, this is just a list of recordings. There were clearly countless people performing the song back then too, and it spread like wildfire.
I also have to mention a name that didn’t come up in the original thread at all but plays a part in the story: Harry Tuft. Tuft claims that he too first learned the song from Bob Coltman, which Coltman confirmed with me. Tuft also says that he taught the song to many people in the late ’50s and early ’60s too. Some of his claims conflict with other versions of the story, but Tuft is currently writing his own version of the events, so I won’t say any more until he has made that public.
All of this raises thorny issues about the writing credits and ultimately the copyright to the song. Montgomery’s final verse begins “Lord I know you gonna miss me when I'm gone.” The young woman in prison, our “Woman Blue” as Felicity Ford has named her, added the single word “rider” into the line. And that single, amended line is the most important in virtually all of the subsequent versions of the song, and indeed provides its title. So does the copyright to the song belong with Little Brother Montgomery? With the young woman? The Lomaxes? Bob Coltman? Any of the subsequent performers who wrote their own verses? A copyright lawyer’s dream come true—or worst nightmare.
And that brings things up to date. New early recordings are still being discovered at an astonishing pace, including one sung in French(!):
But I believe we can at last put to rest the true origins of the song and most of its history.
Please forgive the length of this post, but it seemed important to set the record straight, and this seemed like the place to do it.
One final note, Bob Coltman is still around, and he and I have gotten back in touch. He already knows about all of this, and I’m posting all of it with his sanction.