Lyr Req: Rattlesnakin' Daddy (Blind Boy Fuller)

19 Nov 01 - 05:43 AM (#595484)
Subject: Rattlesnake daddy
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

OK, I know they're not that complicated, it's an old Blind Boy Fuller song, I've got the Corey Harris version and could transcribe it, not found in the DT or Harry's Blues Lyrics, if anyone's got it in handy form to post I'd be grateful.
RtS (no sexual innuendo in the lyrics I'm sure!)

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19 Nov 01 - 06:04 AM (#595490)
Subject: Lyr Add: I'M A RATTLESNAKIN' DADDY (Fuller)
From: masato sakurai

The Blind Boy Fuller version is this:

I'M A RATTLESNAKIN' DADDY
(rec. New York, 23 July 1935)

1 I woke up this morning : about half past four
2 Somebody knocking : on my back door
3 Yes he rattle this morning : about past three
4 Half past four : he want to rattle some more
5 I got a range in my kitchen : bake bread nice and brown
6 Get my rattlesnake daddy : turn my damper upside down
7 I can rattle to the left : rattle to the right
8 My woman said I believe my rattlesnake daddy : can rattle all night
9 I rattle evey morning : till late at night
10 Reason why : my rattlesnake mama don't allow me out of her sight
11 Now the old folks rattling : the young ones too
12 Ain't nobody rattle : just like the way I do
13 Yes I rattled this morning : about half past ten
14 Half past nine : I'm going to rattle again

(Michael Taft, Blues Lyric Poetry: An Anthology, Garland, 1983, p. 89)

~Masato

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19 Nov 01 - 06:46 AM (#595494)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rattlesnake daddy
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

You're a scholar and a gentleman, Masato, thanks.
RtS

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20 Nov 01 - 12:08 AM (#596120)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rattlesnake daddy
From: Stewie

Just for the record, there is also an unrelated 'hillbilly' blues with the same title, 'Rattlesnake Daddy', by Bill Carlisle - very much Jimmy Rodgers-style. The best-known recordings were by Homer Callahan (Callahan Brothers) and by the Bailey Bros and the Happy Valley Boys, the latter on the Rich-R-Tone label that is greatly prized by collectors of vintage bluegrass.

--Stewie.

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20 Nov 01 - 03:47 AM (#596168)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rattlesnake daddy
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

...Corey Harris uses most of the verses Masato listed but interspersed with a chorus that goes:
I'm a rattlesnakin' daddy x3
Rattlin' all night long

RtS (AND he starts off with a kazoo break!)

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