The version of 'Cocaine Blues' in DT as 'Cocaine Blues 3' attributed to Luke Jordan is NOT Luke Jordan's 1927 recording. The note to it in the DT refers to Jordan's 2 contributions from 1929 on 'Virginia Traditions: Western Piedmont Blues' Global Village. I have most of the GV Virginia Traditions series, but unfortunately not that one. However, on checking the Global Village website, it lists the 2 Jordan tracks on that album as 'Goin' Up To the Country' and 'Jailhouse Blues'. Is the 'Cocaine Blues 3' in DT hiding under one of those titles? It seems unlikely. Godrich and Dixon has no mention at all of Jordan blues of the titles on VT album, so they cannot have been issued commercially.

There was a request for Jordan's 'Cocaine Blues' within the 'cocaine' thread. I have started a new 'lyric add' thread because I believe it is an important and fine blues that has been sorely neglected. It is probably the first blues about cocaine addiction to be recorded. As I indicated in the other thread, it was recorded in 1927 by a black artist, Luke Jordon, who was born in West Virginia in 1892, but who settled in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1916. Two years later, 1929, it was recorded by the white West Virginian artist, Dick Justice. The versions are very close – Justice even sings the line: 'I got a girl she works in the white folks yard'. The work of many West Virginian white artists, in particular, provides ample evidence that there was considerable interaction between the races, at least as far as music was concerned. The wonderful Yazoo 2000 series compilations that intermingle 78s from the 'race' series and the 'hillbilly' series offer many examples of this interrelationship throughout the south.

Below is my attempt at a transcription of Luke Jordan's recording. As with any transcription of old blues, it will be subject to correction because different ears will hear different things. It took me a long time to get 'elephant' in the third stanza until I recalled how Johnny Jones pronounced 'elephant' in his famous version of 'Dirty Dozens' – you then wonder why you couldn't hear it at first. Jordan gives a specific circus name in stanza 3 – does anyone know what it should be? Justice simply refers to 'a vaudeville circus'. In the refrain verse, I cannot be sure whether Jordan is singing 'she come on sniffin'' or 'she come on sniffed me', but I have opted for the former even though it more often sounds like the latter. In the 'what in the world' verse Jordan sings 'earthly plant' clearly enough, but Justice sings 'masonry plank'. Part of the 2 'furniture man' verses are similar to Lil McClintock's (male singer, Lil is short for Little) justly famous 'Furniture Man' that he recorded in 1930.

The 'baby's in the cradle' stanza is a real puzzle. Nothing seems to make much sense and, try as I might, I cannot decipher what he is singing in the second half of the second line. Any ideas? The Justice version is different, but just as odd:

'Now the baby's in the cradle in New Orleans, the dog's getting whippin till the baby got mean
Stopped the whippin' till the baby got sore, mama said she couldn't smell no more
Sayin', go doctor, ring the bell - the women in the alley
I'm simply wild about my good cocaine'

Oliver says that only a small number 'of blacks were "snowbirds" going on a "sleigh-ride" by sniffing cocaine'. The commonest drug used in the black community was marijuana. Jordan's blues may be the first time the wellknown lines about 'coke's for horses etc' made it to vinyl. Rev Gary Davis didn't record his more famous 'Cocaine Blues' till he was 'rediscovered'. Both Jordan and Justice were excellent guitarists and singers and their music is well worth a listen.

Cheers, Stewie. (Hoping for some corrections and puzzled by the attribution in the DT)

COCAINE BLUES
(Luke Jordan)

Oh go on, gal, don't you take me for no fool
I'm not gonna quit you, pretty mama, while the weather's cool
Around your back door, oh honey, I'm gonna creep
As long as you make those two and a half a week

Now I got a girl, she works in the white folk's yard
She brings me meal, I can swear she brings me lard
She brings me meat, she brings me lard
She brings me everything, I swear, that she can steal

Now Barn and Beale's (?) circus came to town,
They had an elephant looking good and brown
They did not know it was against the law
For the monk(ey) to stop at a five drugstore
Just around the corner, just a minute too late,
Another one's standin' at the big back gate
I'm simply wild about my good cocaine

I called my Cora, hey hey
She come on sniffin' with her nose all sore,
The doctor swore (she's) gonna smell no more
Sayin', run doctor, ring the bell - the women in the alley
I'm simply wild about my good cocaine

Now the furniture man came to my house, it was last Sunday morn
He asked me was my wife at home and I told him she had long gone
He backed his wagon up to my door, took everything I had
He carried it back to the furniture store and I swear I did feel sad

What in the world has anyone got for dealing with the furniture man
If you got no dough, you stand no show, it's certain he'll back you back
He'll take everything from an earthly plant, from a skillet to a frying pan
If ever there was a devil born without any horns,
It must have been a furniture man

I called my Cora, hey hey
She come on sniffin' with her nose all sore,
Doctor swore (she's) gonna smell no more
Sayin' coke's for horses, not women nor men
The doctor said it will kill you, but he didn't say when
I'm simply wild about my good cocaine

Now the baby's in the cradle in New Orleans,
It kept a-whippin' till it got so mean
It kept a-whippin had to fix it so (indecipherable)
Saying, run doctor, ring the bell – the women in the alley
I'm simply wild about my good cocaine

I called my Cora, hey hey
She come on sniffin' with her nose all sore,
The doctor swore (she's) gonna smell no more
Sayin', run doctor, ring the bell - the women in the alley
I'm simply wild about my good cocaine

Now the baby's in the cradle in New Orleans,
The dog's getting whippin till the baby got mean
Stopped the whippin' till the baby got sore,
Mama said she couldn't smell no more
Sayin', go doctor, ring the bell - the women in the alley
I'm simply wild about my good cocaine

SOURCE: Luke Jordan 'Cocaine Blues' Vi 20176. Recorded Tuesday 16 August 1927 in Charlotte NC. Reissued on Various Artists 'The Roots of Rap' Yazoo CD 20218. Dick Justice recorded 'Cocaine Blues' on 20 May 1930 in Chicago Ill. It is reissued on 'Old-time Music from West Virginia' Document DOCD-8004. ^^