How to Sing the Blues

Subject: How to Sing the Blues
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 20 May 03 - 05:57 PM

If all you musicians have already seen this, I apologize. I just found it and think it's excellent.

How to Sing the Blues

Subject: RE: How to Sing the Blues
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 May 03 - 06:58 PM

Yeah, it's been posted here a few times:

21 Aug 1997
26 Nov 1997
14 Oct 1998
08 Jan 1999
23 Jul 1999
25 Nov 1999
28 Mar 2000
22 Jan 2001
09 Apr 2001
30 Aug 2001
30 Aug 2001

Now, a true folklorist would compare all those versions and see how they've evolved…

For instance, I see "meanest dog" has changed to "meanest face."

Subject: Lyr Add: YOU GOT TO SUFFER TO SING THE BLUES
From: CRANKY YANKEE
Date: 20 May 03 - 08:51 PM

A friend of mine, Jack Radcliffe, once told an interviewer that, "You got to suffer to sing the blues". Jack is a really good blues singer, BUT HE HAS NOT , REALLY, SUFFERED. Keeping in mind that his name is really Radcliffe, Of the New Bedford Radcliffes, My darling wife, Donna, and I composed the following as if it were from a person who did not have the qualifications for singing the blues, but who desperately wanted to. May be sung to any "blueslike" melody. Oh, yes the D.A.R.is the Daughters of The American Revolution, perhaps one of the most biggoted bunch of females ever assemled

          YOU GOT TO SUFFER TO SING THE BLUES   c1997 Rose Island Music)
                            I
My Momma's in the D.A.R.,
she wears twenty five hundred dollar Gucci shoes
My momma's a member of the D.A.R.
wears two thousand five hundred dollar Gucci shoes,
But if she was a barefoot laundress, WAOEW,
I know I could sing them blues

                           II
My daddy's a wall street banker,
see him on the evening news
my daddy's a wall street banker
see him on the evenin' news
But if he was a sharecropper, WAAOOWWEEE
Could I ever sing them blues

                         III
I got 20/20 vision,
Never spent a day in jail
I got 20/20 vision,
Never spent a day incarcerated in a jail
If I could only be struck blind, wooahwooee
I know I could really wail

                         IV
I f I could find a way to suffer
I know I could sing the blues
If I could only find a way to suffer,
I know, I know i could sing them blues,
So I'm gonna tear up all my credit cards,
And beat myself 'till I'm black and blue

                         V
One day I asked my Mammy,
"Mammy how can I sing the blues"?
I says Mammy, Mammy, Mammy, Mammy, Mamooooooo'
How can I sing them blues"?
And she says, (spoken with english accent) "IT'S NOT MAMMY, IT'S NANNY, and I haven't the foggiest notion"

Jody

Subject: RE: How to Sing the Blues
From: CRANKY YANKEE
Date: 20 May 03 - 08:53 PM

The above, "You got to suffer to sing the blues" should be attributed to "Mississippi Blind Preacher Leadbottom Moms"

Subject: RE: How to Sing the Blues
From: alanabit
Date: 21 May 03 - 02:07 AM

I like it. It reminds me of Shel Silverstein's song about the folk singer from New York, the title of which escapes me momentarily.