The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #61198   Message #982707
Posted By: Stewie
14-Jul-03 - 12:25 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Born in Hard Luck (Chris Bouchillon)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Born in Hard Times,Chris Bouchillon
Jeepman, I don't have it, but the correct title is 'Born in Hard Luck'. It was reissued on an Old Homestead album. There is a discography of Bouchillon on Stefan Wirz's site. John Cohen recorded a 'Talking Hard Luck' on Vol III of the New Lost City Ramblers which has been reissued on CD: NLCR 'Early Years' Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40036. Cohen's talking blues is a composite of Bouchillon's 'Born in Hard Luck' and Lonnie Glosson's 'Arkansas Hard Luck Blues'. Glosson's piece has been reissued on Various Artists 'The Roots of Rap' Yazoo 2018, but I don't think Bouchillon's has made it to CD. The composite may be found at page 214 of 'Old-Time String Band Songbook' {previously NLCR Songbook}(Eds) J.Cohen, M.Seeger and H.Wood. The whole thing is quite long, but the bit attributed to Bouchillon by NLCR is short:

Now people, I'm gonna tell you what
a hard luck man I really am. Ya know
I was born in hard luck. I was born in
the last month of the year, the last
week in the month, the last day in the
week, the last hour in the day, the last
minute in the hour, to tell the truth now, I
like not to have got here at all. Oh,
I'm hard luck all right.

Ya know, I was born down there in the
country on a little farm where the
land's so poor, that you got to put
fertiliser around the telephone poles
before you can talk over the wires,
but it is a good place to be from anyways.

There's probably more to Bouchillon's piece, but that is all the NLCR's note they used in the composite - the telephone bit is also in Glosson's.

--Stewie.