Origins: I Know You Rider

Subject: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From:
Date: 28 Oct 01 - 08:54 PM

"I Know You Rider" is very well known in versions by the Grateful Dead and other performers who have learned it from them. However the song clearly predates the existence of the Dead as a group in any form. The Byrds recorded a great version in 1966 (it wasn't released until years later but is now available on the explanded "Fifth Dimension" CD), and also Vince Martin and Fred Neil issued a version in 1964! It was the lead-off cut of their Elektra album Martin & Neil, Tear Down the Walls -- Fred's first LP -- you can occasionally find this as a Japanese import CD. Is Fred the first guy to perform the song in a version recognizable as being essentially the same song the Dead did later? Or are there other pre-Dead versions I haven't run across?

Please note that in asking this question, I don't mean to ask if there are traditional blues uses of the VERSES the Dead sing. I know there are plenty of those. But "I Know You Rider" as we know it now is a distinctive song in its own right, not just a traditional blues lyric. It's characterized by a distintive melody line, a descending line which is sung over a cycle of major triads (without dominant 7ths), rather than over the normal 12-bar blues changes (I, IV, V with dominant 7ths). It's a song which is rooted in traditional blues but has its own identity and character. The Martin-Neil and Byrds versions are definitely the same song the Dead popularized. But who originated it? Any comments very welcome! E-mail me directly, [e-mail], and/or post results here. Thanks! -- Johnny Harper

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 09:05 AM

Is it the same version the Seldom Scene/John Duffy did? Don't know the SS date off the top of my head.

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 11:01 AM

Tossi Aaron, long time Phila. resident, knew this song (don't know where she got it) and recorded it for Prestige (?) in about 1962. . . had taught it to MANY guitar students including friends of mine, in the late 1950s. That's the earliest version I know but it's obvious that Tossi didn't make it up.

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From:
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 11:35 AM

I know a neat version by "The Big Three" (an early Cass Eliott group). It's on a 3 cd set called "troubadors of the folk era" .

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: JudyR
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 02:57 PM

Thank you for reminding me of that exciting song which all the coffee house singers were doing in the early 60's. It brings back such memories.

I put in "I Know You Rider" and "origins" on Google and this is part of what I got: "I Know You Rider," "C. C. Rider," "Easy Rider," and even "Trouble In Mind" are blues that have all borrowed from each other... I realize you already said you knew it had blues antecdents but that it was its own song. It said to look at the book Folk Song USA, Alan Lomax, Editor, New American Library. NOTE THIS: Recordings on file by: Dan Eillers, Dan Keding, Frank Hamilton (Long Lonesome Home), Lead Belly (Easy Rider).

I don't know the others, but if Leadbelly recorded it, that would have predated the Fred Neil version, although, again, it is listed as "Easy Rider." Hmmm.....

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: Arbuthnot
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 09:00 PM

My uncertian memory says that the source version was first recorded by Blind Lemon Jefferson, but I don't recall the official title - I do remember that the guy playing it to me pointed out that there were aspects in the lyrics which indicated that it was written by a blind man

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 01 - 10:15 PM

I remember it from the Fifties as well, being song by youthful wannabe folkies. Blind Lemon sure sounds right, but I have no authoritative source.

A

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 10:45 PM

As far as I know, I'm the guy that started the "I Know You Rider" chain.

I found it in John and Alan Lomax's "Our Singing Country," arranged it, sang it a lot around Philadelphia circa 1959-60. Tossi Aaron learned it, put it on an LP, it circulated, a bunch of people started singing it. It subsequently got picked up at the Martha's Vineyard hoots and James Taylor seems to have learned it there.

Lots of others have put it on record since. So far as I'm aware no earlier version was in circulation before mine.

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 11:19 PM

Bob:

A pleasure to see you in these hollowed halls!! Hope you come back often!


Amos

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: GUEST,joseacsilva
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 09:48 AM

Hi Johnny,
          Jorma Kaukonen recorded a great version of this song.You should check it.
      cheers
             Joe

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: GLoux
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 10:31 AM

Bob,

Are you still around Philadelphia?

-Greg

Subject: RE: 'I Know You Rider' origins
From: jeffp
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 11:12 AM

So one would be safe in crediting it as "Traditional"?

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,WmDelacroix
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 04:54 PM

"Traditional" seems a good credit for this one. Leadbelly's "Easy Rider" recording for Folkways doesn't bear much resemblance to The Dead's "I Know You Rider"--it's significantly different in both lyric and melody, the only common thread being the term "rider." It seems to be a standard of the blues lexicon. --- William Delacroix

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Once Famous
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 06:09 PM

The Kingston Trio had a popular version of this on an album from 1963. Judy Henske is given credit for writing.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 06:16 PM

Thing is with this kinda song: there are a thousand versions. Someone somewhere wrote the first stanza. After that, it likely became 'add as you go' singing. Lyric improvisation as it were.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Cluin
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 06:23 PM

I've got a nice live version by Peter Rowan & Tony Rice.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 12:55 PM

No, I'm far from Philadelphia now, as W.C. Fields liked to boast.

I should correct, and amplify on, my earlier post, and try to give a history of the song as best I know it, in response to some of the guesses (a few of which are wide of the mark) and questions above.

I got the song in the mid-1950s from the Lomaxes' 1934 American Ballads and Folk Songs (not Our Singing Country as I first remembered). It's on p. 196. Apparently I was the first to pick it up and sing it, though it had lain around unnoticed in that well-known collection for twenty years.

Peace's guess is right on the money. The Lomax headnote says "An eighteen-year-old black girl, in prison for murder, sang the tune and the first stanza of these blues." The Lomaxes added a number of "floating verses" from other, uncredited sources, and named it "Woman Blue."

So I resurrected and debuted the song. I followed the tune given in Lomax, roughly but not exactly, changed the song from a woman's to a man's viewpoint, dropped two verses, and was its first arranger, voice and guitar in a heavy drag downbeat, sort of an early folk-rock sound.

I sang it a lot in folk circles around Philadelphia, in concerts, around Boston, mostly at the legendary Old Joe Clarke's, and in Dartmouth Outing Club hiker/climber/skier circles, which took me around New York State and New England circa 1957-60. I also sang it in the west, in Wyoming/Tetons "Teton Tea Parties" and on the West Coast, especially in San Francisco and Los Angeles, late summer-early fall '59. Then I went in the Army (sorta like prison) and everything went on hold.

As previously stated, Tossi Aaron learned the song from me in Philadelphia around 1959. She sang it on her Prestige LP. The song traveled around for years among a few East and West Coast folksingers but was not sung by very many people (most white kids took a while to crash the blues).

No well-known singer recorded it until the Kingston Trio. They presumably got it from some West Coast singer who heard me in '59 -- it's possible they heard it from Tossi Aaron's LP, but that LP didn't get much West Coast circulation as far as I know. I never knew Dave Guard personally but he could perhaps have heard me in a West Coast hoot or concert, or else got it from someone who did. The Trio may well have been the Seldom Scene's source, as they drew from all sorts of music stylists.

The next breakout singer to record it was James Taylor in, I think, 1967. He picked it up during his teen years, probably at the hoots on Martha's Vineyard. It may have come from the Trio LP, Tossi's LP, or from some hiker or beach bum who got it from me via New England hoot circles.

Janis Joplin got the song almost simultaneously, perhaps from James, or vice versa. Her source could, I think, have been someone on the West Coast who'd heard it from me, or could have been James. Janis, blues freak that she was, was presumably Jerry Garcia and the Dead's source, perhaps via Jorma Kaukkonen who was the real blues fanatic in that crowd.

Later versions, like the Byrds, Martin-Neil, Rowan & Rice and so on, all derive from those early ones. There is, I think I can state categorically, no other source or root for this song apart from Lomax and me. I have never heard any other song that could be credibly a version of it.

Don't be misled by the Google associations. The song has nothing to do with C.C/Easy Rider or any of the other Rider songs; it is distinct and quite different.

Neither Blind Lemon Jefferson nor Leadbelly recorded the song in any form I know of, and I've heard virtually everything by both men. However, a Lomax verse I didn't use, "Did you ever wake up and find your rider gone?" is heard in various 1920s recordings, and "Sun goin' to shine in my back door some day / Wind's gonna rise up, blow my blues away" is of course universal from c. 1920 on.

The rest of the verses sound like good solid traditional blues but are unique to this song. However, because they were supplied by the Lomaxes, I think we have to worry, as with much Lomax material, that they may have been tinkered with by Alan Lomax, who did more rewriting than he admitted. They're great verses, though, and make the song what it is.

The unnamed Lomax source (doesn't that frost ya? couldn't they have given her name? or did they think that would have endangered her in prison?) is the originator of the core song. Wish we knew her name so we could credit her.

Probably I shoulda copyrighted it. (Everybody else since has.) But in those days a lot of us believed traditional songs were free as the air and should not be locked down. The music industry, obviously, disagreed.

You could, if you wish, credit it Traditional, arr. Bob Coltman.

I'm proud to be the guy who, after Lomax, started the song on its musical rounds. All credit to the Lomaxes for putting it together, and to Tossi, who knew a good song when she heard one.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: jeffp
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 01:39 PM

Thank you, Bob. That is fascinating. I had only been familiar with the Grateful Dead and Seldom Scene versions. I'm considering using this song in an upcoming CD project. I'll credit you as you wish.

Jeff

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 01:47 PM

Thanks for the background, Bob. Posts like that are my reason for coming to this forum.
Is there a recording of your original version of this song?

LEJ

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 02:16 PM

I wish!

Molly Scott and I worked out a pretty interesting slow blazing duet folkrock version in the 1970s, performed once in a Charlemont, MA concert and never recorded to my knowledge.

I never "waxed" (Mylared? laserpitted?) "I Know You Rider" and now I'm afraid I'm past it for that particular song.

I'll reluctantly defer to other artists on this one. Clue: I did it in key of D with 6th string lowered to D, strong, slow, swinging and heavy on the downbeat. Quite different from, say, James Taylor's take on it, which was sort of thoughtful and laid-back.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: jaze
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 06:34 PM

There is a version on Joan Baez' revised and expanded Ist lp/cd. It was recorded at the time of that first lp but not included.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Wayne Mitchell
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 11:52 PM

Interesting. The only version I'm familiar with was done by The Serendipity Singers on their Take Your Shoes Off album in 1964. It's a fast, hard-driving rendition, from the woman's point of view, and it includes the verse which Bob C. says he didn't use: "Did you ever wake up and find your rider gone." Are there other versions which include the verse? The song is unattributed on that album.

Wayne M.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Barry Finn
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 02:05 AM

Hi Bob C, Just an aside . Old Joe Clark's is still alive & well with Sandy Shehian (SP?) at the helm.
Barry

Subject: LYR ADD: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 03:04 PM

Interesting about the Baez. Funny thing, I met Joan at someone's Carmel house in, I think it was, September 1959 and she sang, and I sang, and my travel buddy Bill Briggs sang, but I don't remember whether I sang I Know You Rider or not, so I don't know if she heard it from me. It's possible.

Re the Serendipities, that's a cover I didn't know about.

Barry, thanks for letting me know about Old Joe's. Sandy's a great choice for the place. That's been the school of many a Boston area musician and a great place to hang out. I sang a lot there and learned a lot too.

Thought some of you might like to see a text of the song as I revised, arranged and performed it 1959-75 or so.


I KNOW YOU RIDER
Traditional, arranged by Bob Coltman.

I know you rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone,
I know you rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone,
Gonna miss your man, baby, from rollin' in your arms.

I laid down last night, babe, tried to take my rest…
But my mind kept ramblin' like wild geese in the west.

I know my woman bound to love me some…
'Cause she throws her arms round me like a circle round the sun.

I'm goin' down to the river, set down on a log…
If I can't be your man, honey, sure won't be your dog.

I cut your wood, baby, and I made your fire…
I tote' your liquor babe, from the Fresno Bar.

Just as sure as the birds fly high in the sky above…
Life ain't worth livin' if you ain't with the one you love.

I'm goin' down the road, get some better care…
I'm goin' back to my used-to-be rider, for I don't feel welcome here.

Sun gonna shine in my back door some day…
Wind gonna rise up, blow my blues away.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Once Famous
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 05:28 PM

Bob C.

The Trio's recording of it was already at least 2 years after Dave guard had left and was replaced by John stewart, FYI. However, Judy Henske was pretty close to Dave and to the trio in san Francisco.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 01:48 PM

Bob,

I was thinking about this song a couple weeks ago, so your post gives some closure to a question that has puzzled me for years.

On behalf of every garage band that ever beat this song to death, I thank you for creating a great song.
It was really easy to learn and play, and it sounded great. Along with a very very, few other songs, it was something you could break in any situation where people had guitars but didn't quite know what to do, and make everybody happy--

As to James Taylor , have you ever noticed that the chords to "Fire and Rain" are suspiciously similar to the chords to "I Know You Rider"--food for thought, anyway--

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:41 AM

Martin,

Re the Trio recording, yeah, it had occurred to me that I hadn't checked the date it came out. I assumed Dave Guard would have been the likeliest one to pick the song up, but of course any Trio member, or friend of a member, might have.

John Stewart, hmmm. Actually, Judy Henske (whom I never met either, to my knowledge, but I met a lot of people, including some fairly striking singers whose names I didn't necessarily get, at singing parties on the coast) might be the one who scarfed up the song for the Trio...it was the sort of song that might well have caught her ear.

Any Californians have inside information on the song's earliest days there? I'd be interested to hear more. Because I was in the army and out of folk song circles c. 1960-63, which must have been the song's later circulating years, that's the piece I know least about.

All part of the evolving story...

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 06:50 AM

Got curious and went looking to see if I could establish some further chronology.

(Excuse the indulgence, those who feel we've already spent too much time on the nitty-gritty, but this is fascinating to unsnarl...much of this I'm learning for the first time; I had no idea the song had such a wide circulation!)

The Kingston Trio recording seems to have been "Rider," credited to Shane/Reynolds/Henske, on their July 1963 Sunny Side LP. (Please correct me if this is not the song; I haven't managed to hear it to be sure. At any rate mid-'63 seems to be the earliest possible date they could have recorded the song, which is what I was trying to establish.)

But pretty certainly Judy Henske is their link to the song. If the dates I found are correct, she issued a single, "I Know You Rider"/"Love Henry," on January 1, 1963.

Now. Did Joan Baez did hear the song from me at that party in 1959? The more I think of it the more possible that seems, because that was a hot item in my repertoire then, and I was singing it everywhere I went. If so, the most direct transmission would be if Judy heard it from Joan. Or there could have been some intermediaries.

By the way, Judy Henske's version is pretty different, only uses the first and last verses of my version, adding a couple of other floating blues verses. The Trio version is similar but uses yet other loan verses.

Interestingly, I happened to run across the Martin/Neil lyrics and they use a verse version I hadn't remembered, one I at first revised, and later discarded:

                Lovin' you, baby's, just as easy as rollin' off a log...

So maybe they heard an early version, like Tossi Aaron's for example.

Also in the course of searching I found a statement that Tossi used this as her "signature song." She apparently called it "Rider."    I wonder if she, and the Trio after her, shortened the title out of some anxiety whether I might have copyrighted it as "I Know You Rider." Could that also have been why it was left off the Baez album?

Tossi, if she's still living, or her husband Lee Aaron, might know more. Tossi, are you out there?

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:41 AM

Bob,

In The Coffee House Songbook (Oak Publications, 1966), Jay Edwards and Robert Kelley credit two sources for the song: you and Bill Briggs jointly, and someone whom they call "Stoney?" with a question mark. They collected the song from you and Briggs in the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming in the summer of either 1959 or 1960. They also collected the song from "Stoney?" in New Orleans some time between 1963 and 1965.

Can you shed any light on this? Stoney obviously learned the song later from one source or another, but did you teach it to Bill Briggs? Did the two of you perform it together for Edwards and Kelley? Do you even remember Edwards and Kelley?

My questions are not purely academic. You may be able to establish your copyright to the arrangement even at this late date, since there is independent documentation through Edwards and Kelley. Irwin Silber may still have their manuscript, as he was the owner of Oak Publications. If you wish to contact him, his e-mail address is: [e-mail]

Best of luck.

--- Steve Suffet

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: jaze
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:24 PM

Bob, Joan Baez' first lp came out in 1960. That recording included on the expanded cd includes songs recorded for that session that were not included on the lp. I hate to admit this but hers is the first version of this song I'm familiar with. It's possible I've heard other versions and just never noticed it. It's a very nice song.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 08:46 AM

Wow, this takes me back. More reconstruction ahead.

Yes, Bill Briggs (the legendary hiker, climber, skier and singer "Brigger") learned the song from me. However, I never heard him sing it...he must have deferred to me over the Teton Tea, but it's great he carried it on. Because Brigger was so widely traveled in those days, it is quite possible he may have been the source of some of the various versions around the country.

I don't remember Brigger singing it with me as a duet, but that could have happened. We all "played in" a lot with each other in those days, a habit that was fun and expected then, but became more frowned on as people got into complex arrangements, and jamming around a campfire or living room or cabin or porch became less accepted. Part of the story of the transition of folksong from casual activity to profession, I guess.

I remember two guys who said they were from Pittsburgh -- one of whose name may have been Jay, that sounds right -- who joined us around the campfire over the Teton Tea, summer 1959 at Jenny Lake before the Park Service redesigned the campground and tanked its woodsy soul. They said they wanted to get together a songbook, and got quite a lot of songs from Brigger, me and a few others there. We may even have given them a copy of Brigger's mimeographed "Crud 'n Corruption" collection of the traditional songs he, I and a bunch of other chubbers had put together, a great cross-section of what we were all singing on the trail in the 50s. Thus the genesis, apparently, of the Coffee House Songbook, which, as it chanced, I never saw a copy of, or even knew it existed.

Given that Joan Baez was singing "Rider" presumably from fall 1959 on, we have to figure that she too was an important carrier of "I Know You Rider," as she was active on the coffeehouse etc. circuit and presumably a good few people learned it from her live performances even if it didn't make the cut onto her 1960 debut LP.

So my evolving ideas about the most likely transmission routes of the song would go something like:

1. Lomax to me.
2. Me to Tossi Aaron on the East Coast, Brigger in Wyoming, and Joan Baez on the west coast.
3. East Coast: me, Tossi Aaron and maybe some others to Martin & Neil and (eventually) James Taylor.
4. Nationwide: Brigger to various hearers in his travels east and west.
5. Serendipity Singers (based where?) come in there somewhere, but not clear how.
6. West Coast: Joan Baez to Judy Henske, Kingston Trio and so on to Janis Joplin and beyond.

Given the dates, '63-5, presumably the "Stoney" in New Orleans is one of those who learned the song as it circulated. Brigger did get to New Orleans though I did not; could be "Stoney" got it from him.

Steve, thank you. I will contact Silber.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 01:30 PM

what about Judy Roderick's 'Woman Blue' Vanguard VRS-9197 (mono)/ VSD-79197 (stereo) = Fontana TFL 6078 (UK) ?

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 02:35 PM

I haven't heard it. But I went to her website to check it out. She uses the Lomax title, "Woman Blue" and adds "(aka I Know You Rider") at least on the CD version.

Since that record was not recorded until 1965, I'm assuming Roderick heard it from Henske or the Trio, or even the Serendipity Singers (1964). By the time she picked it up, it was clearly in play in the folk pop market.

Since she uses the title "Woman Blue," though, I take it she (or someone she knew) after hearing the song, must have done some back research, ferreted out its source, noticed the Lomax title and used that.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 06:21 PM

Bob,

Say "hello" to Irwin from me. And I'll say "hello" to Jerry Epstein on your behalf the next time I see him. We are both on the New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club board of directors, so we see each other at least once a month. If you don't already know, Jerry's e-mail address is: [e-mail]

He and Don Wade (also on the NY Pinewoods board) still carry your old Minstrel Records LPs in stock, along with the recordings of Jack Langstaff, Frank Warner, Dwayne Thorpe, and others.

Regards again.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 06:04 PM

This is a tough song to trace. One form is an old blues, not found yet. More than one song involved?
These are the earlier published references
Brown, North Carolina Folklore, 1919. Not seen. Perhaps a different song.
Sandburg- 1928, "When a Woman Blue," Two verses and music in "An American Songbag, pp. 236-237. "collected from Negroes in the cotton fields of Texas."
Lomax, 1934, "Woman Blue," One collected verse and nine added.
Silber, Fred and Irwin, 1973, "Folksinger's Workbook," "I Know You Rider," eight verses, mostly from Lomax (or Coltman or Kingston Trio?).
Bob Coltman, information posted above, song used in the 1950's.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Catherine M.
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:48 PM

This thread is fascinating.

On a slightly different tack, what do you think "rider" means? Horseback? Is it sexual? Does it refer to a particular lifestyle/job? Is there any cultural context?

I'm so glad to know that it was originally from a woman's point of view... it sort of makes more sense to me now that way. I first heard the Byrds recording of this song... and the Jorma Kaukonen version sometime thereafter.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 09:38 AM

Catherine, "rider" is sexual. It is a lover, and not a faithful one. An "easy rider" proverbially "rode from town to town," so it also has connotations of catching a freight (or, earlier, a horse, like a circuit rider. In connection with that, a "stone pony" is another sexual term.

A "rider" is primarily a man who goes from woman to woman, like the silver dollar in the '20s song. A woman "rider" goes from man to man, or is suspected of doing so -- as in C.C. (or Easy) Rider. "Riding" is sex too, but I think there's a wider connotation of a person who is thoroughly at home with the opposite sex, a hottie in modern terms, someone magnetic and available whom anybody might make a play for.

Q, I think the reason "I Know You Rider" is a tough song to trace is that it really only exists in the Lomax version, in mine, and in the various versions that stem from mine. I have found no others, and believe me, I have heard nearly all of the blues issued on record, and seen nearly all of the blues printed by folk song collectors as found c. 1900-1940, and believe me if I had spotted a relative, I would have noticed.

I think we ought to be wary of linking blues that are quite separate just because they happen to share a line or a verse. Just listen to Blind Lemon, Papa Charlie Jackson, Blind Blake, Peg Leg Howell, Barbecue Bob or some of the other prolific bluesmen of the 1920s and you will hear a scad of verses shared and traded in and out of songs that are otherwise quite distinct -- not to mention the great blueswomen like Bessie, Ma and so on, who did the same. Blues verses were a vast pool from which singers recomposed to create individual songs ... a lot like southern mountain fiddle and banjo songs.

Please don't think I'm trying to shut the door on other variants! I just can't find hide nor hair of them in the record.

As it happens, I have the books you mention, and I'm referring to them now.

First, we should remember that "I Know You Rider" as originally collected was ONLY the verse (I went back to Lomax to be sure I give it exactly in the words printed there),

I know you rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone, (2)
Gonna miss your li'l mama, baby, f'um rollin' in yo' arms.

Lomax's added-on verses seem mostly without antecedents I know of, except for "Sun's gonna shine" and a couple I didn't use, like "Take me back, baby." "I laid down last night" is common enough, but usually differs from there on.   For example:

I laid down last night, turnin' from side to side,
I was not sick, I was just dissatisfied.

My guess is that the Lomaxes, who collected scads of blues verses and fragments in addition to distinct songs, put unusual or unique verses here that hadn't fit anywhere else. They commonly did this kind of assembly work in "floating verse" songs, which is how we get our canonical versions of things like "Cindy" and "Old Joe Clarke" as well as various field hollers and blues.

As to the other references, here goes.

Brown: I think the reference must be to Vol III, Folk Songs, p 563, When A Man Gets the Blues. One verse only. No tune provided in Vol IV, "The Music of the Folk Songs."

Oh! when a man get the blues
He boards a train and rides,
Oh! when a woman gets the blues,
She ducks her head and cries.

Sandburg: I've addressed Sandburg's "Woman Blue" (which contains that verse) in Q's separate thread "WOMAN BLUE"

Lomax: addressed above.

Silber. Folksinger's Wordbook: That is exactly, word for word, my earliest version under my title, the version I sang as of 1959 and in about 1960-61 slightly altered to the one quoted above. It is therefore the one that Edwards and Kelley got from me in summer 1959, and I suspect Silber used it more or less whole from the Coffee House Songbook, though I have not seen the latter.

In general, I think I'd like to turn over to the rest of you the task of plowing deeper and deeper trying to find other versions. Any results, please let me know!

I too would like to know the antecedents of some of the Lomax verses. But I think the lesson we keep learning as we play song detective is that the unnamed murderess's first verse was unique to her. That's the song's soul.

As for the other verses, except for antecedents as noted, I haven't had much luck finding them elsewhere.

I guess the only thing left to state is that I was indeed the one who retitled the song, as well as revising and arranging it.

Oh yeah, and just in case of any misunderstanding regarding Bill Briggs re this song. All honor to the great Brigger, who taught me much, whose music I love... But as he would tell you himself, he was not the co-composer, as may have been implied above.

He learned "I Know You Rider" from me, just as I learned many songs from him, including his signature tunes like "Horse Named Bill." the wonderful "Willie's Rare," and "Cuckoo Yodel." To the best of my knowledge (dating back a few years I admit), Brigger still lives in Jackson, Wyoming. If you want to check it out with him, please do; and tell him hello from me.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 10:58 AM

Fascinating! These discussions on the oral/electronic tradition within the folk revival generation singers (and variations thereof) proves to me the validity of Robert Cantwell's book called "WHEN WE WERE GOOD".

This ought to lead to a fine yet to be written book---and/or a television mini-series. ---- Deborah Robins, are you listening???

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 01 Feb 06 - 03:33 PM

Re "Woman Blue," anyone who hasn't already done so may want to check out the "LYR ADD: When a Woman Blue" thread:

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=88130&messages=3

It has a little more "I Know You Rider" history, and in it I distinguish between "Rider" and "Blue," which are separate songs, though in some folk revival versions they seem to cross.

Of course, Art, the *real* book left to be written is WHEN WE WERE BAD. I think I might have some choice input for that one. :)

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: TinkerandCrab
Date: 01 Feb 06 - 05:15 PM

Bob: Thank you for responding to my question about the term "rider" and its connotations. If I read you correctly, it seems to be a double entendre? A "rider" can connote lack of fidelity, as he travels from town to town, partner to partner. (Such a frequent theme in folk songs in general! Rambler Gambler, Rambling Sailor... please help me out with the scores of others...) But it also connotes the sex act itself, being "ridden" by a man. Both connotations are sexual, only the latter is more graphically so. The term "rider" seems to link these two meanings in a playful way.

I guess the other thing about this song that has always intrigued (provoked?) me is the problematic grammar. Am I supposed to *assume* there's a comma between you and rider? As in, "I Know You, Rider". The woman is *addressing* the lover? Apparently others grappled with this issue as well since, if I'm remembering correctly, several performers changed the lyric to "I Know My Rider" so as to make the sentence flow more smoothly: "I know my rider's gonna miss me when I'm gone..." Perhaps I (and others) are a little too verbally uptight for Blues talk... ;^)

And one more thing, which perhaps should be (already has been?) a separate thread: What do y'all think about performers who change the gender of the song's speaker so as to match their own? I bring it up because, personally, I've always had a problem with it. I'm not so musically blessed as to be a performer myself, but in my frequent daydreams in which I am singing a song to an audience, I always sing the song as I have learned it, and simply *take on* the persona of the song's speaker, gender and all. I guess I feel that's part of the art of musical performance. Can any (actual) performers comment on this?

--Catherine (who used to be a GUEST but is now registered)

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 01 Feb 06 - 09:53 PM

"I also sang it in the west, in Wyoming/Tetons 'Teton Tea Parties' and on the West Coast, especially in San Francisco and Los Angeles, late summer-early fall '59. Then I went in the Army...."

Wow! Did you know Elvis?

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 02 Feb 06 - 01:40 PM

It just could be that the teenage female prisoner from whom the Lomaxes that one verse made it up herself. Every traditional song has to start somewhere.

Or, to paraphrase Al Gore, "Folk music? I invented folk music."

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 05:29 AM

Suffet, I've never doubted the female prisoner DID make the verse up herself. I surely hope so. I wish we had a chance to hear what else she sang.

Catherine, about switching gender in songs, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Depends. "Wish I Was a Single Girl Again" has such a female identity I wouldn't change it for anything. In this song I had a personal connection; the rider as she came through the song to my perception was definitely female, and there was a personal story attached, nuff sed. However, in Lomax, the rider was plainly intended to be male.

Why should there be any hard-and-fast rule? You take over any song as your own when you sing it. If you can make the connection across genders, you do. If not, a switch may have to happen if you're going to sing the song at all.

I sing it direct, person-to-person: "I know you rider, you gonna miss me when I'm gone." But all noted approaches are possible.

Elvis? Which Elvis?

Yes, I admit the word "I" is beginning to get monotonous. Sorry folks. It's not conceit, it's just been tempting to answer all the questions by going deep into the past and trying to reconstruct it as truthfully as I know how, because it does seem to have a bearing on how we all got from there to here in the folk music world. But it sure must be a bore to anyone who hasn't that quirk!

But Al Gore never said he invented the internet -- that was just right wing propaganda -- and I sure as hell didn't invent this song. I just happened to be the person who, as I said at the beginning, started the chain by lifting it off the page, arranging and performing it.

Because I feel a strong personal connection to it, part of the intriguing weirdness, for me, has been finding out how far the song has traveled, and trying to work out how that happened. Guess I probably have gone on at too great a length. Put it down to a fatal fascination with song history, even right down to the nits and the grits.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,jones
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 12:34 AM

I believe a very young Bob Dylan, when asked as to the source/inspiration for his tunes, said something like:
"The song was here before I came along. I just came along and wrote it down."

What a treat and an honor to read the words of Bob Coltman regarding this tune.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 02:56 PM

Great song, and even greater input from Bob Coleman. I, for one, am not in the least offended by his unavoidable use of the first-person pronoun.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Eric Levy
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:59 PM

WOW! I see that this thread is a year old, but I was just told about it by my friend Alex Allan, who runs an exhaustive Grateful Dead lyric site: http://www.whitegum.com/intro.htm. He and I, along with our friends Matt Schofield (http://www.deaddisc.com/) and Dick Rosemont (http://www.originalsproject.com/) have been discussing the roots/earliest recordings of Dead songs for years now. "I Know You Rider" has always been one of the harder ones to pin down, and now I understand why. Bob, thank you so much for all the clarification.

I have a few points to add. It's true that the Kingston Trio, the Big Three, and Judy Henske all recorded the song for LPs that were released in 1963. If the January 1st date cited above is accurate, then clearly Henske's was the earliest of those three. I didn't know about the Baez or Aaron versions until reading this thread, so it's thrilling to learn about those.

There are two issues that are still troubling: The Big Three recording credits the song to blues legend Sonny Terry. I can find no indication that he ever recorded the song, but how do we explain the credit?

Bob, the only other possible precedent I've heard of--and it's a long shot, is called "I Told My Rider" by Robert Wilkins, recorded in September 1928, never issued and presumably lost (http://www.wirz.de/music/wilkifrm.htm). So even if that is a precedent, I don't think we'll ever be able to find out.

By the way, the Grateful Dead's earliest recording of the song dates from November 1965.

Anyway, just wanted to thank you for this thread, and add what little I could.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 07:03 PM

The Sonny Terry reference puzzles me. Sonny never to my knowledge did anything remotely like this, and I've heard nearly all of his recordings made from the 1930s onward.

But like the "Blind Lemon" reference way up at the beginning of the thread, it could be a haphazard guess on the part of the person who wrote up the credits. Or Sonny could well have sung a verse resembling something in "I Know You Rider." But his blues were a lot different from it.

Trouble is, antecedent versions of blues are not like antecedent versions of other kinds of songs. They're not like Barbara Allan or John Henry. Blues (apart from ballad blues like Bessie Smith's "Back Water Blues") are assembled on the spot out of often disconnected "floating verses" that may or may not fall into a coherent story.

To show that one blues descended from another, you have to lean a lot harder on melody, sound, overall theme, and the entire text, not just part of it. So if you find a verse or two from "I Know You Rider" in another song or several other songs, that shows commonality of verses, but tells you nothing about their relatedness otherwise.

That's a capsule statement of blues derivation or the lack thereof. Hope that helps separate the sheep from the goats...wheat from the tares...whatever.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 09:12 PM

Bob Coltman, I'm just popping in to this thread to let you know how much I look forward to reading your posts, and learning from you.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and knowledge on Mudcat.

Best wishes,

Azizi

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Eric Levy
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 04:49 PM

Thanks for responding to my post Bob--especially a year after the main thread was discussed. I've been searching for the earliest recording of I KNOW YOU RIDER literally for years, so finding out about Tossi Aaron's recording is like a dream come true. Even more exciting, I managed to find a used copy online already and ordered it. Can't wait to hear it. So thank you so much for finally putting this one to rest.

Another folk song in the Grateful Dead's repertoire that's proven pretty elusive is COLD RAIN AND SNOW, which they first recorded in 1966 and performed throughout their career. It's believed the song's roots date back centuries, and it has been recorded several times, but the earliest recording I've come across is by Obray Ramsey from 1960 called simply RAIN AND SNOW. There is a 1938 song called RAIN AND SNOW by Shorty Bob Parker that is sometimes cited as a source, but it is not the same song.

I suppose we could start a new thread if there is also interest in this song, or feel free to e-mail me off-list.

Thanks once again,
Eric
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 06:53 PM

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 07:10 PM

Excuse the blank message preceding -- bad case of nervous finger.

Azizi, thank you for your kind words. As you know, it's a mutual admiration society. I always learn from your posts and your viewpoint, and appreciate your friendship and your excellent common sense. Keep on posting!

Eric, it makes sense to answer your query here, just in case others would like to know. "Rain and Snow" originated on recordings with Obray Ramsey, as you thought. He was the one who introduced it to us all in the 1950s via his Prestige LP Folksongs From the Three Laurels, and I've no doubt that Jerry Garcia, always interested in banjo songs as a banjo picker himself (when not playing guitar), picked it up from that album.

Ramsey's LP notes credit Cecil Sharp, who collected the 1st verse only from Mrs. Tom Rice at Big Laurel, NC August 18, 1916. I'm guessing that the rest of the verses coalesced around the Laurels in the decades that separated her from Ramsey. Others may know whether he was related to her, or friendly, or just down the road, or what.

But the remaining three verses as Ramsey recorded them are distinct, though each has traditional elements in it, shared with "Red Apple Juice" aka "Red Rocking Chair," among other songs.

"Rain and Snow" is one of my great favorite banjo songs, and I frequently find myself picking it. But that's enough creep for one thread. Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Mudlark
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 01:14 AM

Ah, this is what Mudcat does the best...and very good to get your input, Bob Coltman. I first heard (and promptly started playing) this song on an album on Argo Folk records by a duo that called themselves The Outsiders, Joel Cory & George McKelvey, both prominant in the Chicago folk scene in early 60's. Can't find a year for this album, but I think it was given to me around 1963. They seem to have gotten around the whole title thing by calling it something entirely different, "Gonna Miss Your Lovin' Papa," attribution "Traditional, arr. by Cory/McKelvey. They include most of the verses you list, Bob, pretty much the way you sang them.

This record is stamped "Not for Sale" and I've never been able to find out much about these two...a friend of theirs gave me the album. There's a good version of Stackalee (sic) that they call "Meanest Man in Town."

(Thread creep...Thanks, Bob, for the extra verse for Wait til the Clouds Roll By...I really love singing that song!)

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Eric Levy
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 11:59 AM

Since my last post I received the Tossi Aaron LP. I also picked up the re-release of Joan Baez's album, and I bought the Lomax's book with the "original" version of the song. First off, thank you Bob and everyone else for turning me on to these things. It's thrilling to hear these early folk albums, and needless to say the book is invaluable. I have a couple further points to make...

Concerning the transmission of the song to the Bay Area folks, my friend Christian Crumlish made this suggestion:

"I would guess the transmission went Baez to Garcia, Weir, Kaukonen (not relying on Janis, who arrived later), because Garcia was known to be envious of Baez and ambitious about equaling her career. If she was singing it, he probably heard it. The Palo Alto coffeehouse scene would account for that transmission."

This seems to make sense to me. The Grateful Dead's first recording of the song predates the known recordings by the Byrds, Big Brother, and Hot Tuna. So while all of those artists were clearly familiar with the song relatively early, the evidence for Garcia's familiarity seems to precede (or at least coincide with) the others'. Though Garcia may very well have found a copy of Tossi Aaron's album. Her version of FENNARIO is very close the the Dead's interpretation--much more so than to Dylan's for instance.

On the other hand, I'm friends with Grateful Dead Hour host David Gans (http://www.trufun.com/), who is friends with Jorma Kaukonen. David forwarded an inquiry from me to Jorma about where he learned the song. Here is Jorma's reply:

"I learned I Know You Rider either at Antioch or NYC sometime in 1960. I just learned songs I liked... I had no idea where they came from.
It's a worthless answer but true."

Not exactly helpful--but far from worthless, and Jorma's answer fits Bob's description of how the song migrated.

I have plenty to say about how all of these versions differ--no two are exactly alike, but I'll save that for a future post if I manage to transcribe all the lyrics.

Bob, you stated in an earlier post:

"Because I feel a strong personal connection to it, part of the intriguing weirdness, for me, has been finding out how far the song has traveled."

In case you didn't know--every contemporary "jam band" (a term I'm not fond of) does I KNOW YOU RIDER--inspired by the Dead's rendition of course. Sting Cheese Incident in particular have made it a live staple. For an extremely thorough--though not necessarily exhaustive--list of official recordings, see Matt Schofield's Grateful Dead Family Discography: http://www.deaddisc.com/songs/I_Know_You_Rider.htm.

Finally, I have a question. It seems overwhelmingly clear that Bob was the one who introduced the song to the people in the late 50s/early 60s folk scene, and the song just spread from there. But one question remains: Who recorded it first, Joan Baez or Tossi Aaron?

Joan Baez's self-titled debut album was released in 1960. The liner notes to the re-release CD--written by Arthur Levy (no relation) in 2001--confirm that the bonus tracks were recorded at the same time as the other songs on the original album. Levy just says the album was recorded in "the summer of 1960" but doesn't give any specific dates. The liner notes to the Baez box set RARE, LIVE & CLASSIC (by Joan herself) don't list a specific date for the recording of the album either, though Levy's liner notes say it was recorded in a single day!

As excited as I was about getting to hear Tossi's album, I was just as excited to finally put a date to the recording--or at least the release of her album. Alas, there is no copyright date anywhere on the album--not on the back cover or on the label. Maddening to say the least. In the liner notes--which are by Tossi herself--she refers to a colleague and writes, "In 1959..." obviously she wouldn't use the word "in" if she was writing that same year, so the writing of the liner notes--and presumably the recording of the album couldn't be earlier than 1960, but it could theoretically be later. On the other hand, Tossi was writing these notes for posterity, and could have written "In 1959" knowing that people would be reading these notes for years to come (as indeed I did in 2007), so 1959 is a remote possibility.

I found a website which lists all of the Prestige International albums from the era: http://www.jazzdisco.org/prestige/folk-cat/a/. Maddeningly again, there is very little date information for any of these albums. The earliest one with a date listed is Dave Von Ronk's FOLKSINGER album from "April 1962." The site doesn't specify if this is the recording or release date. But assuming the albums were released sequentially by catalog number, Tossi's precedes Ronk's. So that places her album somewhere between 1959 at the earliest, and April 1962 at the latest. I'm leaning toward 1960 as the release year, but was Tossi's recorded before Joan's? Finding the true "original" recording is very important to me, so any ideas or further help would be wonderful.

Finally, the notes to the re-release of Joan's album don't offer any information about where she may have learned it, but Tossi says she learned it from "other singers" again supporting Bob's claims.

Eric (now a Mudcat member)

PS. Thanks for the COLD RAIN info Bob--good to cross another one off the list :^)

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: jaze
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 04:59 PM

I'll check her autobiography about the recording of the 1st lp to see if there is any mention of when it was recorded.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: jaze
Date: 23 Feb 07 - 06:02 PM

Nothing new in her book or Positively 4th Street--just that the lp was recorded -19 songs over 3 days, in the summer of 1960. It was released with 13 songs in Nov.1960.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Eric Levy
Date: 24 Feb 07 - 07:21 AM

Thanks for checking Jaze. I actually e-mailed Joan's management yesterday to see if they would forward my inquiry. I doubt I'll get an answer, but if I do I'll post it here.
Eric
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Eric Levy
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 02:52 PM

Some exciting news to share. Unsurprisingly, I haven't heard back from Baez's management, but Tuesday evening I had the pleasure of speaking on the phone with...

TOSSI AARON!

Yes, she is still around, and living near Philadelphia. We spoke for about an hour, and it was a wonderful conversation. I had the feeling she was pleasantly surprised to find someone was researching her. She had all sorts of interesting stories to tell, like when Bob Dylan and his girlfriend spent the weekend at her house in 1962. And she did confirm that her album was recorded before Joan Baez's first album, so we can finally put to rest who did the first recording. As Bob suggested above, it was definitely Tossi.

Bob, she had a few questions for you that I prefer not to share publicly. Please e-mail me off-list if you get a chance.

Eric
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Eric Levy
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 02:54 PM

Forgot to mention: Tossi had no idea that the Grateful Dead had recorded I KNOW YOU RIDER. She was tickled to learn it was such a huge part of their repertoire and has since become a jam band anthem.

;^)

Eric

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 Mar 07 - 06:05 PM

I missed reading these recent messages "live" last month; I was just checking my "tracer-ed" threads and found this great stuff today.

I have nothing to add about "I Know You Rider," but I feel obligated to pass along the information that I very recently heard an unfamiliar (i.e., new-to-me) recording of "Cold Rain and Snow" on Sean O'Meara's Saturday morning Celtic-music program on WWOZ. The lyrics and melody were exactly what I would expect, but the tempo was extremely slow and the chords were strikingly different ~ slightly dissonant (probably due to DADGAD guitar tuning) ~ resulting in a wholly unfamiliar and very melancholy sound.

The recording conveyed the flavor of a very ancient Celtic song, but was undoubtedly a recent production. It was so different from the Dead's rendition, as well as from any conceivable 60s-era folk performance, that it took me several verses to realize that the melody had not been changed at all, or at least not significantly.

Setting the familiar melody against a highly-produced, extremely echo-ey multi-instrumental background featuring a completely reworked harmonic structure (chord progression) turned it into a very different song.

Sorry; no info on the artist, label, etc. ~ I heard it on the radio! I may be able to email the DJ to learn more.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: michaelr
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 01:14 AM

An interesting version of "Rain and Snow" featuring the Red apple juice verse is on the recent Solas 10-year Reunion CD/DVD. Probably not the version Poppa heard, though.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Peace
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 02:00 AM

"Rain and Snow" or "Cold Rain and Snow"--info here.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Eric Levy
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 09:21 AM

From David Gans:

I sent the Tossi Aaron "Rider" and "Fennario" to Bob Weir today,
asking if he thought they might have influenced Jerry's versions.
Here's what he said:

>I never heard these recordings, but they were typical of the current
>versions of these songs at the time of their release. I heard
>folkies doing these songs this way back in the early 60's, though
>1960 was a bit before my time. Sounds like Tossi Aaron could have
>been an early inspiration for Joan Baez.
>
>Jerry could have picked up his versions of these tunes from these or
>any of a number of other similar versions.
>
>Cheers,
>Weir

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 11:05 PM

Greetings:

I recently recorded I Know You Rider, and I will likely include it on my next CD, scheduled for release later this year. Here's how I describe it in the song notes: One of my all-time favorite traditional blues. Bob Coltman popularized it among folk musicians in the 1950s. Later, Janis Joplin sang it. So did the Grateful Dead, James Taylor, and countless others.

My version is pretty different from Bob's, although I am indebted to him for giving me (and all of us) a starting point from which to develop an individual arrangement.

Here are the chord changes I use:


A          A7          G       D7       A    A7
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone,

A          A7          G       D7       A    A7
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone,

      E7                                             A
Gonna miss your lovin' daddy, rollin' round in your arms.


Thank you, Bob, for rescuing this wonderful song from obscurity.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:20 AM

I'm so glad to see this wonderful thread again, and to re-read every word.

For the record, I think it's time someone provided the chord progression as it's generally known, probably Bob Coltman's or very close. This is what makes this song so distinctive and momorable, what made it become a "jam-band anthem."

I think this bit of harmonic structure ranks right up there with Dave Van Ronk's arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun" as the a couple of the greatest creative achievements of the American folk revival. In both cases, a relatively ordinary traditional song, a simple melody that could easily have been sung over a very conventional 2- or 3-chord arrangement, is completely transformed by an original, and very inventive, chord progression. Both works are pretty obviously the product of a mind accustomed to thinking in terms of chords, and seem to have been written on and for the acoustic guitar.

(DVR's transformation of "House of the Rising Sun" is, of course, the version much more widely known as recorded first by Bob Dylan and later by The Animals.)

So, for anyone who doesn't already know it ~ "I Know You Rider" in D:

. D                   C       G       D
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone

. D                   C       G       D
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone

      F         C          F               A
Gonna miss your daddy from rollin in your arms...

Another similarly "underground" song that was truly folk-processed during the early electronic age of the '60s, becoming hugely popular thanks to a fun-to-play guitar-chord progression, was the garage-band staple "Hey Joe," eventually made most famous by Jimi Hendrix. There's a great Mudcat thread (or maybe more than one) about "Hey Joe," tracking down its nearly-forgotten creator, and discussions of how it became a "live-band" favorite without ever making much of a splash as a commercial recording.

Now, "Hey Joe"'s chords are simple and obvious to anyone who took Music Theory 101 ~ a plain-vanilla circle of fifths. Dave Van Ronk's arrangement of "Rising Sun" and Coltman's of "Know You Rider" are something else again: each distinctive, original, and irresistible.

And neither one of them made a dime for its creator. I think that qualifies these songs as "real" folk music.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:42 AM

I've been working on I Know You Rider quite recently. My first knowledge of it was John Renbourn's version.

I've been using Martin Carthy's guitar tuning that he uses for Famous Flower of Serving Men (DGCGCD). Also I move the the third line up to the second, and repeat the first line. I think it works quite well. I'll put a version o the website and put the URL on here - soon as I can.

Its a great lyric and repays your attention many times. I can see we all owe Bob Coltman, the Lomaxes and the original authoress a great debt.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,RS
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 05:38 AM

Just discovered this very interesting thread - I, too, first heard this song via J Renbourn, but the mention of the single original stanza put me in mind of the first verse of Frank Stokes' 'It Won't Be Long Now' (recorded August 1928), to whit:-

One of these mornin's, mama & it won't be long (X2)
Before you miss your good man rollin' in your arms.

Stokes was a big seller in his day, so maybe his lyric was a prior source? Chordally tho, his song follows the usual 3-chord blues format..

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 07:02 AM

Greetings again:

The chords for first two lines of my version of I Know You Rider are pretty similar to Bob Coltman's, that is: I - Dorian VII - IV - I. Where we differ is that I use the I7 and IV7 chords in some measures where he stays on the basic I and IV chords. My third line, however, is completely different. Instead of going to the Dorian III and Dorian VII, my version uses the conventional V7 until it resolves back to the I chord.

Note that Robin Greenstein, the late Hedy West's former student and personal assistant, recorded I Know You Rider as a fairly standard blues, using the I7 in place of the Dorian VII in each of the first two lines, and using the V7 back to the I chord as my version does. I borrowed harmonic ideas from both Bob and Robin, but my arrangement is unlike either of theirs.

By the way, except when I'm jamming with others, I've stopped doing the DVR/Dylan version of House of the Rising Sun. Instead I have gone back to either the simpler version that Pete Seeger recorded or the fast and bouncy 4/4 time major key (with flatted 7th) version that Woody Guthrie recorded.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Darowyn
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 08:48 AM

I have a version of "See See Rider" by Ma Rainey- a very old version accompanied by what sounds like a New Orleans Street Band from the 1920s or 30s.
The interesting thing about that version is that it has a sixteen bar verse, with a very conventional I,V, V,I music hall song structure, and then goes into a twelve bar blues structure for the chorus.
"See See Rider, See what you have done (twice)
You made me love you, now you done and gone"
It was on a compilation CD called "The Birth of the Blues".
I get the impression that this version pre-dates anything yet mentioned.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 12:00 PM

The Kingston Trio frequently took songs like "Rider" and translated them into up-tempo pieces with a driving rhythm and used them as "show stoppers." My own group used this same song in around 1963-1964 in northern California with the same approach. It was very effective for us, especially after a group of two or three ballads.
I have occasionally bumped into original Trio member Nick Reynolds, who still lives in this area. If the occasion arises, I will ask him if he recalls where they found the song.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 05:44 PM

Greetings again,

In case anyone is interested, here are the lyrics I just recorded:

I Know You Rider
(Traditional, adapted & arranged by Steve Suffet)

I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone,
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone,
Gonna miss your lovin' daddy rollin' round in your arms.

Now, I wish was a catfish swimmin' in the bottom of the sea,
Said, I wish was a catfish swimmin' in the bottom of the sea,
And my baby come a-fishin', she come a-fishin' after me.

Takes a hard hearted woman to make a long time man feel bad,
Takes a hard hearted woman to make a long time man feel bad,
She makes he remember all of the troubles that he had.

Well, I ain't got a nickel, and I ain't got a lousy dime,
Said, I ain't got a nickel, and I ain't got a lousy dime,
Without your love, babe, the sun ain't never gonna shine.

But that sun's gonna shine in my back door some day,
Said, that sun's gonna shine in my back door some day,
And that wind from the river carry all my troubles away.

I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone,
I know you rider gonna miss me when I'm gone,
Gonna miss your lovin' daddy rollin' round in your arms.


I can't recall for sure where I got all the verses from, except that they came from many sources.

Enjoy!

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 07:20 PM

Greetings one more time!

I recently had Laura Munzer add her own vocal part to my vocal and guitar. So, using the lyrics shown above and the chords I posted on March 19, I will release I Know You Rider as a boy-girl blues duet on my new CD, Low Rent District, due out this fall.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 06:02 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 06:23 AM

Here is a draft of my songs for the upcoming CD:

12. I Know You Rider (traditional, adapted & arranged by Steve Suffet © 2008; 2:55). One of my all-time favorite traditional blues. Bob Coltman popularized it among folk musicians in the 1950s. Later, Janis Joplin sang it. So did the Grateful Dead, James Taylor, and countless others. John and Alan Lomax collected the original version from the singing of an 18-year female prisoner in the 1930s.

I welcome suggestions, but please remember that space is limited. If I add any text, I need to delete a like amount.

The copyright notice only extends to my own arrangement, of course. The place that makes my CDs requires that I submit an intellectual property declaration along with mechanical licenses and/or copyright registrations for every song, including any in the public domain. I find it easiest to burn a CD-R with tracks of all the PD songs I am using, and then submit it to the US Copyright Office as a unit, along with a Form PA registration and a check for $45.

Did I actually add any new material to I Know You Rider, as required to claim a copyright? My answer on Form PA is "Musical arrangements for voices and instruments, and editorial revisions of words (includig order of verses, and addition or deletion of text)."

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Suffet
Date: 17 Jul 08 - 03:21 PM

Greetings:

I just put a sneak preview of my version of I Know You Rider onto the SoundClick website. Just click here for my music page, and I Know You Rider will be the first song at the top. That's me on guitar, Allen Hopkins on harmonica, and Laura Munzer on second vocal.

I Know You Rider will be on my upcoming CD, Low Rent District. I intend to take down the sneak preview once the CD is released later this year. Please enjoy it for free while you can.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Johnny Harper
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 06:44 PM

I'm interested to see that I actually started this thread 9 years ago! (As a Guest; now have Member status.) The subject continues to interest me, and I'm finally ready to post about it again. I have an interesting entry ready to post, comparing the CHORD PROGRESSIONS of the many different versions that have been discussed here, and some more -- almost all of which I have heard (including the earliest recordings, Baez and Tossi Aaron), and almost all of which are slightly different from each other! BUT...

The one thing I don't know, Bob Coltman, is the chord progression YOU were playing when you first disseminated the song. Your contributions on this topic have been extremely valuable and a real pleasure to read. And of course we're all very much in your debt for having first put the song into circulation. But this one question remains: what was your original arrangement, your version of the chord progression? (And do you still play it that way now, or has your version changed with time?) Please let me/ us know this, and I'll then post my comparative analysis of the different ways the chords were played, by these various performers back in the '60s/ early '70s. Looking forward to hearing from you on this matter.

Best regards, Johnny Harper
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: PoppaGator
Date: 31 Mar 10 - 05:17 PM

Glad to see this old thread resurrected, especially in such an interesting fashion by the "OP" (original poster).

When I first heard this song played by the Dead, the chord progression sounded familiar, pretty much the way I had heard it played acoustically by folkie-types, in person and maybe on records.

Allowing for transposition from one key to another, I've always considered this song as one that always uses (in essence, that defines) a certain characteristic chord-progression that is quite distinct from the standard 12-bar-blues routine ~ even though the verses are three lines in length, same as a standard blues song.

When I learned from this thread that Bob Coltman is apparently responsible for this standard/popular version of "Know You Rider," I began to consider his accomplishment as very similar to Dave Van Ronk's resetting of the traditional "House of the Rising Sun" to an innovative set of chords, the arrangement made relatively famous by Bob Dylan and then, later, world-famous by the Animals...

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 31 Mar 10 - 07:35 PM

Here are the chords I used at the beginning, and still do. Pretty straightforward:

    D                               C             G          D
I know you rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone,

    D                                        C          G            D
I know you rider, you gonna miss me when I'm gone,

            A7                        G                        A7                D
Gonna miss your sweet papa, babe, from rollin' in your arms.

At times I built a vamped D - C - G - C - D progression under the first two lines and at the ends of all three lines, but not invariably.

Hope the chords appear approximately over the right words ... Bob

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,GUEST, Warren
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 10:55 AM

hi from later with a couple more cents. When I was 16 in 1966 and just learning guitar my folks shipped me to a summer program in France to get rid of me for 6 weeks. I met a cute 17 year old girl who was way better than me (so being as I was both younger and crummier she wasn't 'interested' in me, but I badgered her into showing me some chords to practice: Rider! She told me she learned the song from her guitar teacher, "An old beatnik living in Palo Alto. There's a couple of older kids that are his students, too. They are in a band that plays at this pizza place......" OK, so that's that.

Years later, understanding that the lyrics come from C.C. Rider, and various other songs, all shifting sands here; I came across a 1967 paperback reprint of Lomax' book (foreward by Pete Seeger) which gave a verse as:

I wish I was a catfish swimmin' in the deep blue sea
I wish I was a catfish swimmin'in the deep blue sea
That'd stop all them women from fussin' over me!

It didn't make any sense, but I sang it that way. Now, just last year I was waiting (for nothing as it turned out) in front of Union Station in Los Angeles and, among other things, this old black guy in a wheel-chair saw my guitar, caught my eye with a nice grin and powered on over to share a cigarette. We traded riffs on the guitar. I played Rider. When we got to the above verse, he very sharply articulated the 'correct' lyric: "That'd stop all them women from 'f--kin' over me! Yeah, well. Guess so.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 30 May 17 - 03:48 PM

"understanding that the lyrics come from C.C. Rider" "Rider" was a very common black slang expression meaning lover i.e. meaning the person you're currently having sex with. It was liberally thrown into folk songs where "mama" or "baby" could be thrown in instead and it wouldn't make any difference. The presence of the word "rider" in one black folk song should never be taken as evidence that the song is related to another black folk song with the word "rider" in it, any more than you would do the same with the interjection "mama."

Ma Rainey popularized Lena Arrant's song "See See Blues" (as Arrant initially called it) in 1924, but Arrant's song was just one version of a family of black folk blues songs about seeing what you done, many of which didn't happen to have the word "rider" in them, and many of which, e.g., said "look" what you done rather than "see." Even in the '50s and '60s the members of that family that didn't happen to include the word "rider" still existed. None of this had anything to do with e.g. "circuit courts" as was creatively imagined by some later. See meant see.

The Lomaxes were notorious for lumping fragments together and rewriting them to create unidiomatic messes. In this case Coltman turned an unidiomatic (from a blues standpoint) Lomax mess into unidiomatic (from a blues standpoint) actual music.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Seth Lipner
Date: 28 Dec 20 - 04:30 PM

In Ken Burns’ documentary on Country Music, in the second episode on Jimmie Rodgers, at one point the background music is:
“I’d rather drink muddy water, sleep in a hollow log...,” lyrics The Dead incorporated when they sang IKYR as a stand alone (acoustic) song. I assume the voice is Rodgers, who died in 1928

I cannot find any reference to these lyrics on the Net to these lyrics other than in GD material, nor does this thread mention a Rodgers recording.

Fascinating history

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST,Jerome Clark
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 08:18 PM

Actually, Jimmie Rodgers died in 1933.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 21 - 01:17 AM

My error on date. Sorry

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Eric Levy
Date: 18 Dec 23 - 11:46 AM

Well, it’s been over 22 years since this discussion began, 16 years since I last participated in it, and there have only been five new posts in the last 13 years. But this online discussion forum remains the place to go to learn about the roots of I KNOW YOU RIDER. The site continues to be cited and referred to and is a primary source of information in many places, including YouTube and Wikipedia, so it is clearly still being visited. Well done contributors!

But the research into the history of the song has continued, and some of the information provided here is out of date or outright wrong, including information that I originally provided. Since this Discussion Board continues to be referenced, I wanted to set the record straight about some of the mistakes and provide an update on all that’s happened since the last posts. So I hope that people just discovering this Discussion Board are reading to the end.

Part of the reason I hadn’t contributed to this thread for so long was that it really felt like we had done all the research that was possible 13 years ago. There were still many unanswered questions: Who was the unnamed 18-year-old woman from the Lomax book? From whom did Joan Baez learn the song? And how exactly did the song make its way to Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead? Some of these question are still unanswered and probably unanswerable, but quite unexpectedly a wealth of exciting new information regarding the history of I KNOW YOU RIDER was revealed in the last two months of 2023.

But first, to respond to and expand on several posts above:

Back on 29 Oct 01, Pete Peterson wrote in the third post on this site that Tossi Aaron’s album featuring I KNOW YOU RIDER was released “in about 1962.” We now think it was 1961, but it was not 1960 as I claimed in a later post. Also on 29 Oct 01, JudyR posted about the “song which all the coffee house singers were doing in the early 60's.” Also true and a more important point than we might have realized at first (see below).

Then three and a half years later on 25 Apr 05, Bob Coltman joined the discussion, explaining, “As far as I know, I'm the guy that started the ‘I Know You Rider’ chain… So far as I'm aware no earlier version was in circulation before mine.” Both of these claims are also true (more or less, see below), as has been confirmed in many places since then.

Coltman in his 10 Jan 06 post writes, “The next breakout singer to record it was James Taylor in, I think, 1967.” It was actually 1968, when Taylor’s self-titled debut album was released (on the Beatles’ Apple Records!). The four verses that Taylor sings are all derived from the extra verses in the Lomax book, so it is definitely the same song, but Taylor’s rendition is more of an adjunct to the main tradition of the song as his is titled “Circle Round the Sun” and doesn’t feature the signature “I know you rider” verse.

Coltman: “Janis Joplin got the song almost simultaneously, perhaps from James, or vice versa. Her source could, I think, have been someone on the West Coast who'd heard it from me, or could have been James. Janis, blues freak that she was, was presumably Jerry Garcia and the Dead's source, perhaps via Jorma Kaukonen who was the real blues fanatic in that crowd.”

The only known—certainly the only released—recording of Janis Joplin doing the song is a live version by Big Brother and the Holding Company from 1966. Where Janis learned the song will likely remain another mystery, but she definitely was not Jerry Garcia’s source for the song. As Johnny Harper says in the very first post in this discussion, the Byrds recorded the song in 1966 as well—a studio version that wasn’t released until much later, as Harper points out. But as I mentioned in a much later post on 06 Feb 07, the Grateful Dead first recorded the song in 1965 when they were still called the Warlocks. The details of the history of the song for the Grateful Dead are worth a brief explanation.

The first significant (and sanctioned) recording of I KNOW YOU RIDER by the Grateful Dead is of course on their legendary triple album EUROPE ’72, so most people—most non-Deadheads anyway—likely assumed that the song began that year for the Dead. Not true at all. The Warlocks—using yet another band name on this one occasion, “The Emergency Crew”—spent a single day (November 3, 1965 to be exact) recording six songs at the tiny Golden State Studios in San Francisco. Only two of these songs would extend into their subsequent repertoire: the original CAUTION (DO NOT STOP ON TRACKS) and I KNOW YOU RIDER. The Golden Gate recordings would later be officially released on the album BIRTH OF THE DEAD in 2001, though they were a heavily traded tape among collectors for years prior to that. There are a handful of known 1966 live performances of I KNOW YOU RIDER by the band that was by then called the Grateful Dead. The song then disappears from the repertoire until 1969, when it is first paired with the Dead original CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER.

There are a handful of 1970 acoustic performances by the Grateful Dead, in a vastly different arrangement and divorced from CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER, but otherwise, with the barest exceptions, I KNOW YOU RIDER was always performed as part of a two-song medley with CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER. Deadheads colloquially refer to the pair as “China/Rider.”

The song is mysteriously dropped from the band’s live repertoire after the 1974 hiatus. Then, after a single 1977 performance, the song returns to frequent rotation in 1979 and remains there until the end in 1995, with altogether over 500 performances and the song ranking in the top-ten most played Grateful Dead songs. End of Grateful Dead history.

Another post on 10 Jan 06 by jaze is the first to mention Joan Baez’s recording. jaze is correct that Baez recorded the song at the same session for what became her self-titled debut album—19 songs recorded in a single afternoon in the summer of 1960, though I KNOW YOU RIDER didn’t end up on the album at the time, and wasn’t released until 2001. (Baez was no doubt performing the song back then though.) So unless another recording happens to turn up, Baez was the first to record the song, not Tossi Aaron or any of the others. More on this in a moment.

Also on 10 Jan 06 in the discussion, Wayne Mitchell mentions the Serendipity Singers’ recording of the song. Different online sources give 1964 or 1965 for the date of their album. Wayne asks if their non-Lomax verse appears anywhere else. It does in the Big Three’s 1963 recording, which is the clear inspiration for the Serendipity Singers’ version. Both groups shortened the song’s title to RIDER, which the Kingston Trio did too.

Coltman wrote on 13 Jan 06: “I was in the army and out of folk song circles c. 1960-63, which must have been the song’s later circulating years, that's the piece I know least about.” It turns out that piece is huge! It was during those years that the song became so popular, with ten different recordings that we know of, plus countless live performances at folk festivals, in folk clubs and coffee shops, and at parties all over the country. Various reports claim that John Phillips, Bonnie Dobson, and Judy Collins all performed the song during those years (though none of them recorded it). So Coltman’s stint in the army exactly coincided with the song’s explosion in popularity, which Coltman created but largely missed. This could explain why he jumps from Tossi Aaron’s recording in 1961 to James Taylor’s in 1968, though Coltman does acknowledge how the song expanded in so many ways in his subsequent posts.

On 10 Feb 07, Mudlark mentions the recording of I KNOW YOU RIDER by Joel Cory & George McKelvey, which they called GONNA MISS YOUR LOVIN’ PAPA. Excellent addition Mudlark! Always exciting to discover another 1963 recording (the liner notes explain that the album was recorded in March of that year, and discogs.com confirms 1963 as the year of release). I just got my hands on this record, and it’s a lovely, slowed-down version.

For thorough, though not necessarily complete, lists of the early recordings of the song see:

https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2023/12/i-know-you-rider-lyric-variations.html

and:

https://whitegum.com/~acsa/introjs.htm?/~acsa/songfile/I1KNOWYO.HTM

I joined the above conversation in early 2007. On 02 Mar 07, I mention my first phone conversation with Tossi Aaron and said, “she did confirm that her album was recorded before Joan Baez's first album, so we can finally put to rest who did the first recording. As Bob suggested above, it was definitely Tossi.” It turns out this was incorrect. Tossi’s memory was less reliable than I had hoped, and I based my post on what she told me. But she and I corresponded for many years, and she mailed me photocopies of clippings she had saved for all these years. One of these was a handwritten note by Joan Baez complimenting Tossi on her debut album. Others were album reviews and notices about concerts. From all of these, we determined that Joan’s debut album did indeed precede Tossi’s. I don’t know why I didn’t post this at the time. I should have, and I’d like to apologize now for not setting the record straight earlier, especially because Tossi’s recording being the first, and the incorrect recording date of 1960, have been spread all over the internet, including YouTube and Wikipedia, as well as numerous Grateful Dead websites. As I recall, Tossi and I settled on 1962 as the release date (nothing could be established definitively), but the online Prestige Records discography I cited in my 23 Feb 07 post has since added dates to the albums that were then missing a date, and lists Tossi’s as being released in 1961:

https://www.jazzdisco.org/prestige-records/catalog-international-13000-series/

This seems trustworthy.

So, unless another newly discovered, unexpected recording turns up, it is now safe to say that Joan Baez did the first recording, and Tossi Aaron did the second, but Tossi’s was the first to be released.
Tossi Aaron passed away in March 2018. I deeply regret that we had fallen out of touch a few years before then. Luckily her legacy lives on, thanks in part to this forum.

I believe that answers all of the questions and corrects all of the misinformation. Now for the new information.

In November 2023, I discovered two more early recordings of the song that were completely off anyone’s radar. One is called I LOVE MY BABY by David Gude from the 1962 various artists album NEW FOLKS:

https://www.discogs.com/release/6727861-The-Greenbriar-Boys-Jackie-Washington-Hedy-West-Dave-Gude-New-Folks

Like James Taylor would six years later, Gude changed the title of the song and skips the signature “I know you rider” verse. But the three verses he does sing are from the Lomax book, so it definitely counts as another early version of the song. Gude’s is clearly patterned on Joan Baez’s rendition. The liner notes to the NEW FOLKS album—on Baez’s label Vanguard—explain that Gude and Baez were friends and even collaborators, so it makes sense that he learned it from her even though her recording hadn’t been released at the time.

And it was Gude’s recording that inspired a 16-year-old high school senior named Martha Gerenbeck to also record the song—title and first verse restored—in 1962. She and some friends recorded an album of their favorite folk songs called GREEN TREES AND BLUE WATER, which was released in 1963:

https://www.discogs.com/release/11385948-Tom-Manning-6-Martha-Gerenbeck-Bette-Shields-Steve-Curwood-George-Adams-7-Pat-Riley-6-Keith-Yingling

Only 125 copies were ever pressed. And I have to thank my good friend Roger Phenix, who also appears on the album, for letting me know about it and generously giving me a copy.

These discoveries were what inspired me to re-open my long-dormant inquiry into the roots of the song. After I told Roger about all that I had discovered years ago—much of which comes from this Discussion Board—he started helping me with my research. This led him to Felicity Ford, who was involved in a knitting project inspired by the song. Yes, you read that correctly, knitting:

https://www.knitsonik.com/2023/06/07/woman-in-all-the-blues/

In his 03 Feb 06 post, Bob Coltman wrote: “I've never doubted the female prisoner DID make the verse up herself. I surely hope so. I wish we had a chance to hear what else she sang.” Quite unexpectedly, that wish came true. Felicity Ford seems to be the one who made the biggest discovery yet.

When the Lomaxes, and other musicologists of the era, “collected” songs, that sometimes meant recordings, like with Lead Belly, to name the most famous example, but more often it just meant transcribing lyrics. Everyone always assumed that this is what happened with our mystery 18-year-old woman’s verse. It turns out we were wrong. She was incarcerated in the Mississippi State Penitentiary, known then and now as Parchman Farm. And her song was indeed recorded on August 9th, 1933 in the sewing room of the women’s camp. Luckily that recording is available for free on the Lomax Digital Archive:

https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/mississippi-1933-1940/parchman-farm-833/prison-rider-blues

As you can see, the song was titled PRISON RIDER BLUES, which could explain why no one had discovered it until now (I don’t know how long the Archive has been available online). And as if hearing the recording wasn’t exciting enough, she actually sings three additional verses that are not included in the Lomax book! The familiar “I know you rider” verse is the fourth. Here are her complete lyrics (helps to read along as you listen):

…Rider where have you been so long?
Oh rider rider rider rider where have you been so long?
Yeah I ain’t had no lovin’ baby rider since you been gone

I’m-a wake up in the mornin’ baby ’n I ain’t gon’ say a word
I’m-a wake up in the mornin’ baby ’n I ain’t gon’ say a word
I’m-a eat my breakfast baby over in sweet ol’ Hattiesburg

Babe that little bell keeps a-ringin’ and that little bell she sadly tone
Yeah that big bell keeps a-ringin’ and little bell she sadly tone
Yeah I’m-a lonely lonely lonely now I’m a long way from home

I know you rider gonna miss me when I’m gone
I know you rider gonna miss me when I’m gone
You gonna miss your little mama baby from rollin’ in your arms

Needless to say this was a staggering discovery! Of course it also raised some new questions: Why did the Lomaxes just include the last verse in their book? Where did these additional verses come from? Before I answer that question, I want to revisit Jerry Garcia and how he learned the song.

Since re-opening my investigation into the song last month, I’ve been in touch with several people, including Jody Stecher, who was in the Asphalt Jungle Mountain Boys with Jerry Garcia in 1964. Jody explained that the song was literally everywhere in the early-to-mid ’60s. Stecher e-mailed me: “There’s no mystery. The song was ubiquitous in the early 60s. It was really all about a chord sequence rather than the words. It got into Jerry’s repertoire the same way Three Blind Mice did. It was unavoidable. How it became that way is a different matter and I don’t know the answer. It was a staple of folk groups and soloists alike.” Stecher’s point is echoed by many of the other people I’ve been in contact with.

Jerry himself confirms this in an interview for the series THE HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL (edited slightly for clarity): “It’s an old folk song. I mean it used to be like a standby, really, in the coffee houses and stuff like that. I never performed it as a bluegrass person. I never was a folkie very much. I just wasn’t that good. I mostly played in bands with other people. But I always liked that song no matter who did it. And there were all these folk versions of it that were really modern versions. Of the ones that I could remember, the arrangements, the versions of it, melodically and as far as the chord structure and so forth, that was the one that I sort of called from my own memory. I don’t remember where I learned it. I don’t remember who taught it to me or why I chose it, except it’s just a nice song, and I thought it would be ideal to do with an electric band.”

In corresponding with Jody and hearing what Jerry had to say, I now feel that our earlier attempts to isolate where Jerry may have learned the song—a Joan Baez performance, Tossi Aaron’s album, etc.—were misguided. The song was everywhere. Jerry probably didn’t remember who taught it to him because no one did teach it to him. It was just in the air.

Back to the roots of the song:

In his 10 Jan 06 post, Bob Coltman wrote, “There is, I think I can state categorically, no other source or root for this song apart from Lomax and me. I have never heard any other song that could be credibly a version of it.” He then continued on 18 Jan 06: “I think the reason ‘I Know You Rider’ is a tough song to trace is that it really only exists in the Lomax version, in mine, and in the various versions that stem from mine. I have found no others, and believe me, I have heard nearly all of the blues issued on record, and seen nearly all of the blues printed by folk song collectors as found c. 1900-1940, and believe me if I had spotted a relative, I would have noticed.”

I KNOW YOU RIDER has indeed been “a tough song to trace,” but after the revelation that the recording of the young woman existed and was accessible, a Grateful Dead blogger named Caleb Kennedy made a remarkable discovery! It turns out the young woman didn’t come up with the lyrics herself. Nor was she singing some old traditional spiritual passed down through many generations. She was singing a song that was just three years old at the time and a regional hit in Mississippi called NO SPECIAL RIDER BLUES by pianist and singer Eurreal “Little Brother” Montgomery whose career was just beginning but would last decades. You can hear his song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi4MO3LpSxU

Caleb goes into exhaustive and fascinating detail about all of this here:

https://deadessays.blogspot.com/2023/12/

So I think it's now safe to say the early history of the song goes:

1930: Little Brother Montgomery records NO SPECIAL RIDER BLUES
1933: The young woman is recorded singing the Montgomery song, which gets titled PRISON RIDER BLUES
1934: The Lomaxes publish the expanded lyrics under the title WOMAN BLUE
1957: Bob Coltman discovers the song in the Lomax book, starts performing it on the East Coast and soon elsewhere (Coltman himself told me that the year was 1957)
1960: Joan Baez records I KNOW YOU RIDER (unreleased until 2001)
1961: Tossi Aaron records I KNOW YOU RIDER (first release of the song)
1962: David Gude records I LOVE MY BABY, Esther Halpern and Martha Gerenbeck each record I KNOW YOU RIDER
1963: Recordings by Judy Henske, Joel Cory & George McKelvey, The Big Three, The Kingston Trio (likely in that order)
1964: The folk floodgates
1965: The Warlocks are the first to give the song a rock setting

Of course, with the exception of Coltman, this is just a list of recordings. There were clearly countless people performing the song back then too, and it spread like wildfire.

I also have to mention a name that didn’t come up in the original thread at all but plays a part in the story: Harry Tuft. Tuft claims that he too first learned the song from Bob Coltman, which Coltman confirmed with me. Tuft also says that he taught the song to many people in the late ’50s and early ’60s too. Some of his claims conflict with other versions of the story, but Tuft is currently writing his own version of the events, so I won’t say any more until he has made that public.

All of this raises thorny issues about the writing credits and ultimately the copyright to the song. Montgomery’s final verse begins “Lord I know you gonna miss me when I'm gone.” The young woman in prison, our “Woman Blue” as Felicity Ford has named her, added the single word “rider” into the line. And that single, amended line is the most important in virtually all of the subsequent versions of the song, and indeed provides its title. So does the copyright to the song belong with Little Brother Montgomery? With the young woman? The Lomaxes? Bob Coltman? Any of the subsequent performers who wrote their own verses? A copyright lawyer’s dream come true—or worst nightmare.

And that brings things up to date. New early recordings are still being discovered at an astonishing pace, including one sung in French(!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=wZLihwnorSU

But I believe we can at last put to rest the true origins of the song and most of its history.

Please forgive the length of this post, but it seemed important to set the record straight, and this seemed like the place to do it.

One final note, Bob Coltman is still around, and he and I have gotten back in touch. He already knows about all of this, and I’m posting all of it with his sanction.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: gillymor
Date: 18 Dec 23 - 01:15 PM

To answer a question way up the thread I recently read a biography of John Duffey and it revealed that the Seldom Scene version's was inspired by the Grateful Dead's. It was a showstopper for them back in the early 70's.

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Dec 23 - 04:35 PM

GuestRS
following my earlier post ( way up above ), I'd just like to point out that the Little Brother Montgomery record was preceded a couple of years earlier by Frank Stokes' 1928 'It won't Be Long Now' ( part 2 ), which has the lines ' One of these mornin's, mama & it won't be long, 'fore you miss your good man rollin' in your arms' - not to say that LBM's record wasn't the source for the Lomax recording, but it may itself have precedents? Not to detract in any way from Bob C's magnificent accomplishment in coming up with a classic.
cheers all,
RS

Subject: RE: Origins: I Know You Rider
From: Eric Levy
Date: 20 Dec 23 - 11:45 AM

Great point RS. Caleb Kennedy goes into detail about all of the songs, including the Stokes track you mention, that Montgomery drew from on his blog:

https://deadessays.blogspot.com/2023/12/

Well worth reading in full.