Song of the Day 6/10: Cab Calloway, “The Reefer Man”

With Delaware lawmakers debating a marijuana legalization bill, it seems worthwhile to remind them that cannabis wasn’t always illegal, and its effects weren’t considered dangerous until a wave of refugees from the Mexican Revolution in the 1920s prompted anti-immigrant forces to agitate against the “marihuana” they brought with them.

When Cab Calloway, a guy whose Delaware connections are played up at every opportunity, recorded this tune in 1932, the reefer man — what we now call a stoner — was still being treated as a figure of fun and ridicule. It was just a couple of years later that Congressional hearings kicked off the period of “reefer madness,” culminating in changes to tax law in 1937 that in effect outlawed cannabis.

Swing revivalists Big Bad Voodoo Daddy recorded a cover in 2009 that eliminates most of the banter that precedes the singing on the original.