Saturday, July 25, 2020

Take 5 With Catfish Blues

Today's short playlist is devoted to several renditions of "Catfish Blues," a song first recorded by Robert Petway in 1941 although Jim Jackson's "Going To Kansas City (Part 3)" contains a couplet that would be the core of subsequent versions of the song including songs by Muddy Waters and Eddie Taylor. It was a theme that would also be covered by Jimi Hendrix and Government Mule. We start with Petway's classic recording.


Muddy Waters' song, "Rolling Stone" is derived from Petway's recording.


Another derivation of "Catfish Blues" is Eddie Taylor's "Stroll Out West." While he recorded it (I believe) Vee-Jay, here is an acoustic rendition for The album "I Feel So Bad."


K.C. Douglas was a Mississippi blues artist who moved to the San Francisco Bay area. Here is his rendition.


To close this playlist, we have an electric band version from Elmore James disciple, Johnny Littlejohn.


I can easily do a set with five more renditions, but that will wait for another day.

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