Looks like Big Cabinet caught Trump’s ear, and those just-announced 50% tariffs on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities are going to cost homebuilders and remodelers, not to mention homeowners, even more than Trumpflated groceries. Trump says it will bring employment to places like the Carolinas and Michigan, where I’m sure they’ll be excited to get back the exact same jobs they lost in the Great Depression.
Delta blues, like other folk music, was built from spare parts, just like your next kitchen cabinets are likely to be. The legendary Robert Johnson is credited with writing this blues standard, but the melody is identical to the 1930 track “Sitting on Top of the World” by the Mississippi Sheiks. The words – most of them, anyway – are Johnson’s, but he recorded two takes of the song and the lyrics aren’t the same.
This was his first take. It went unreleased until 1961 when Columbia issued “King of the Delta Blues Singers,” the first LP of Johnson’s old 78 rpm recordings.
The second, more upbeat take was released in 1937 on the Vocalion label.
The song has been covered by all sorts of artists – the Allman Brothers, Steve Miller, Eric Clapton, David Bromberg, dozens of others – often as a slide guitar showpiece. But I hadn’t heard of this guy, who released one LP on a Swedish label in 1970, until I started listening to various covers. I think you’ll recognize the name, but it’s a different guy, for whom I could find no biographical information.
