Song of the Day 10/5: Cab Calloway, “St. James Infirmary Blues”

Donald Trump is making lots of noises about leaving the hospital, doctors’ recommendations be damned. Once upon a time they put people like that in what was known as a “lock hospital” — one where patients were put in restraints. Originally used for lepers, by the mid-18th century the term referred to facilities that treated venereal diseases. One such gave rise to a folksong called “The Unfortunate Rake,” but nobody knows how the name St. James came into it; there was once such lock hospital in London, but it closed in the 16th century.

Whatever its derivation, the tune had many variations before Louis Armstrong first recorded it 1928, and it quickly spread to other jazz musicians. Cab Calloway recorded it in 1931, and that’s the version Max Fleischer used in the cartoon “Betty Boop in Snow White.” Koko the Clown’s dancing in it is modeled on Calloway’s own. In this clip, somebody grafted an instrumental version onto the end of the cartoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBx3qYGxL8

For you old-time animation fans, here’s the whole cartoon, with the song in context.

I know El Somnambulo once featured this in his Music for the Masses, but that was 11 years ago, and I think it’s more fitting today, given that we have an actual cartoon clown in the Oval Office.