9/15/2013

Cream - Rollin' And Tumblin'


Cream performing at the Tulip Bulb Auction Hall in Spalding. Monday 29th May 1967 . Rollin' And Tumblin'.

"Rollin' and Tumblin'" is a blues song that has been recorded hundreds of times by various artists. Considered as a traditional, it has been recorded with different lyrics and titles. Authorship is most often attributed to Hambone Willie Newbern.
The song may bear relation to "Minglewood Blues", recorded January 30, 1928 by Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. Parts of the tune and harmonica accompaniment are similar to "Rollin' and Tumblin'". The earliest recorded version is "Roll and Tumble Blues" by Hambone Willie Newbern (Okeh 8679), recorded March 14, 1929. Other bluesmen recorded their own versions—such as "If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day" by Robert Johnson in 1936, "Brownsville Blues" and "The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair" by Sleepy John Estes, "Goin' Back to Memphis" by Sunnyland Slim, "Banty Blues" by Charley Patton, and "Rollin' Blues" by John Lee Hooker.
The best known version became Muddy Waters' "Rolling and Tumbling", with Ernest "Big" Crawford on bass, for the Chess brothers' Aristocrat label in 1950. Leonard Chess insisted that Waters record the song less than a month after Waters had recorded a version for the rival Parkway label, featuring his band mates Little Walter and Baby Face Leroy Foster. The Parkway label credits the Baby Face Leroy Trio, with vocals by Leroy, and Muddy Waters as the songwriter. Elmore James recorded the song as "Rollin' and Tumblin'" in 1960, with himself credited as author.
In 1961, Howlin' Wolf recorded "Down in the Bottom", which employed a new set of lyrics and was credited to Willie Dixon. Delta bluesman Johnny Shines recorded a version called "Red Sun" (1975), with the traditional music but different, prison-themed lyrics. Mississippi Hill Country bluesman R. L. Burnside also recorded several versions of what he titled "Rollin' Tumblin'".

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