The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #46314   Message #688953
Posted By: Rolfyboy6
12-Apr-02 - 11:54 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: 16 Coal Black Horses, a funeral dirge
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 16 Coal Black Horses a funereal dirge
I'm glad you put it in too. This is the modern version being passed along by blues musicians from one to another. It has a early jazz/ragtime feel. The crowd in the barroom is generally described as "and the usual crowd was there."

and an additional verse: "I want six crap shooters for pallbearers
Chorus girls to sing me a song
and a jazz band on my hearse wagon
To raise hell as I roll along." This was the version I learned in the 50s (I was about 12) from Mrs. Helen Keinitz, a friend of my mother. She said she learned it as a young woman about 1928.