Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful

Subject: Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful
From: GUEST,Martoons
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 04:19 PM

I just got this CD called "Shake 'Em On Down ~ The Real Country Blues" and love the song by Nathan Beauregard, but I can't tell what he's singin'
I've search the usual suspects online and can only come up with Willie Dixon & Mance Lipscomb titles, but the songs don't seem to be the same. Anyone know of a better resource or a better ear for me to find these lyrics?

Thanks,

M

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful
From: Sorcha
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 04:49 PM

Check out the very bottom of this page. They are 'related' songs. I didn't find Nathan's exact lyrics...

Subject: Lyr Add: 'BOUT A SPOONFUL (from Mance Lipscomb)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Jan 04 - 09:32 PM

This is the best I could do. I hope it's useful to someone.
Copied from Harry's Blues Lyrics Online:

'BOUT A SPOONFUL
as sung by Mance Lipscomb
recorded probably 1960
from "Texas Sharecropper & Songster" (Arhoolie 1001)

I've been drinkin' bad whiskey all night long, got the headache now.
Yes, been drinkin' bad whiskey all night long, oh Lord, mama, got the headache now.

Tell me, what you gonna do with your brand-new daddy, 'bout a spoonful?
Tell me, what you gonna do with your brand-new papa, oh Lord, mama, 'bout a spoonful?

And late last night when come home from gettin' a spoonful.
It was late last night I come home from gettin' a spoonful.

Oh Lordy, mama, oh Lord, daddy, just a spoonful.
All I want, baby, in this world, oh baby, just a spoonful.

Eve and Adam was the first two people got a spoonful.
Tell me, Eve and Adam was the first two people, oh mama, got a spoonful.

Late last night when I lay down and got a spoon....
Baby, late last night I lay down, oh mama, got a spoonful.

Oh, I drinkin' bad whiskey all night long, got the headache now.
I been drinkin' bad whiskey all night long, oh mama, got the headache now.

Tell me, what you gonna do with your brand-new daddy, 'bout a spoonful?
Oh what you gonna do with your brand-new papa, 'bout a spoonful?

Put him in the bed, gonna run him crazy, 'bout a spoonful.
Put him in the bed, gonna run him crazy, oh Lord, mama, 'bout a spoonful.

All I want in this wide world is just a spoonful.
Baby, all I want in this wide world is just a spoonful.

Tell me, what you gonna do with your brand-new mama, 'bout a spoonful?
Tell me, what you gonna do with your brand-new mama, oh Lord, baby, 'bout a spoonful?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Jan 04 - 10:30 PM

My gawd! You actually got into Harry's???? Good man, there!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 05:43 PM

Click here for Charley Patton's SPOONFUL BLUES.

Click here for Willie Dixon's SPOONFUL.

Here are a couple more versions of Spoonful for which I could only transcribe short excerpts from sound samples found at Barnes & Noble

JUST A SPOONFUL - Charley Jordan

I'd smack the judge and I'd go to jail for a spoonful.
I'd go to jail, I don't want no bail, for a spoonful.

My baby said I couldn't get that spoonful.
I said, "Look here, gal, don't you fool with me 'bout my spoonful."

LOVIN' SPOONFUL - Rev. Gary Davis

I never knowed such a disturbment raised before in my life, just 'bout a spoonful.
I come in one morning just about half-past nine,
She got the biggest chair in the house, trying her best to knock me blind.
She raised sand on me again, just 'bout a spoonful.
Slam me on the head, said, "If you want to get along with me, give me my spoonful."

[Raise sand = an old Southern expression meaning to start an argument or fight.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 12 Jan 04 - 04:26 AM

I thinbk it was originally recorded by Papa Charlie Jackson in the early '20s, playing 6-string banjo.

RtS
(but I might be wrong!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful
From: Stewie
Date: 12 Jan 04 - 07:25 AM

Roger, you are quite correct. He recorded it in September 1925 in Chicago - 'All I Want Is a Spoonful' Paramount 12320. Paul Oliver comments in 'Screenign the Blues' that Jackson 'has a light swing to his syncopated banjo accompaniment which expresses his enjoyment in the song even if his amendment of the words gives scarcely a hint of its original lustiness'. Early collectors such as Odum and Johnson had hinted coyly about such pieces in oral circulation, but did not quote them. Evidently, all the recorded versions are but a shadow of what existed in tradition. Mack McCormick has written in an essay entitled 'The Damned Tinkers': '... the blue pencil has amputated numerous verses which are traditionally sung as part of popular pieces such as "Salty Dog", "Willie the Weeper", "Corrine Corrina" and "Uncle Bud". Though bits and pieces have appeared on commercial records and are elsewhere hinted at, it is only in the folk community itself that one will hear "The Dirty Dozens", "'Bout A Spoonful" or "Big Balls In Texas" in their full-blown classic form'.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Bout A Spoonful
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Jan 04 - 08:09 AM

Thanks for the tip, Roger.

According to AMG, Papa Charlie Jackson's version, called ALL I WANT IS A SPOONFUL, appears on the collection "Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1: (1924-1926)," Document CD 5087, and on "Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey Vol. 1." A sound sample at Barnes & Noble yielded these words:

...fall
There ain't no one woman got it all
'Cause all I want, all I crave, is just a spoonful, spoonful.

You can mate a woman that you can't understand
But she lookin' for you out of (?) a monkey-man.
'Cause all I want, all I crave, is just a spoonful, spoonful.