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Woke Up this Morning, Blues All Around My Bed/Good Morning Blues
Traditional 12 bar Blues Tune; Widely known
ARTIST: Asa Martin
Richard Matteson- C1986 Recorded by Matteson Blues on True Blue. See Leadbelly's version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh-hr2YxwoY
CATEGORY: Blues Jazz Bluegrass Songs; DATE: Early 1900’s; Early version published: Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson, Negro Workaday Songs (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1926)
RECORDING INFO: Good Morning/Mornin' Blues
Silverman, Jerry (ed.) / Folksingers Guitar Guide, Oak, Sof (1961), p54
Brewer, Jim. Jim Brewer, Philo 1003, LP (1974), trk# A.04
Griffith, Andy. Andy Griffith Shouts the Blues and other Old Timey Songs, Capitol T 1105, LP (1959), trk# A.06
Leadbelly. Good Night, Irene, Allegro LEG 9025, LP (196?), trk# 10 [1939]
Leadbelly. Silverman, Jerry (ed.)/ Art of the Folk-Blues Guitar, Oak, Sof (1964), p30
Leadbelly. Lomax, John & Alan Lomax (eds.) / Leadbelly. A Collection of World Famou, Folkways, sof (1959), p28
Leadbelly. Lomax, Alan / Folksongs of North America, Doubleday Dolphin, Sof (1975/1960), p586/#311
Morrison, Van;, Lonnie Donegan, and Chris Barber. Skiffle Sessions, Virgin 8 48307 2 4, CD (2000), trk# 4
Roth, Arlen. Roth, Arlen / How to Play Blues Guitar, Acorn Music Press, sof (1976), p17
Roth, Arlen. Roth, Arlen / Traditional Country and Electric Slide Guitar, Oak, sof (1975), p 52
Silverman, Jerry. Silverman, Jerry (ed.)/ Art of the Folk-Blues Guitar, Oak, Sof (1964), p32
Traum, Happy. Traum, Happy / Blues Bag, Consolidated Music, Sof (1968), p15
White, Josh. Josh White Stories, Vol. 2, ABC ABC-166, LP (196?), trk# A.01
Good Morning Mr. Walker
RELATED TO: Many different blues use the "Good Morning Blues" verse, which is a floating verse including "Lonesome Home Blues" Tommy Johnson 1930.
OTHER NAMES: “Good Mornin' Blues” “I Want to See Santa Claus” “Woke Up Dis Mornin'” “Morning Blues”
SOURCES: Journal of American Folklore XXIV 278; Handy/Silverman-Blues, pp. 190-192, "Atlanta Blues (Make Me One Pallet on Your Floor)" (1 text, 1 tune, loosely based on this song); Darling-NAS, pp. 292-294, "Lovin' Babe" (1 text, composite of floating verses including this one); Blues: An Anthology, edited by W.C. Handy (1926; 1946; Macmillan, 1972, p. 190-192; with music) Library of Congress by Vance Randolph from Ozark Mountain fiddlers;
NOTES: Good Morning Blues is a traditional blues that evolved from African-American worksongs. It was collected by Howard Odum (1926) and popularized by Leadbelly and found in a different lyric version by Count Basie (Jimmy Rushing) from 1937. The Count Basie song usually is known as Good Monring Blues (I Want to See Santa Claus) and uses the standard tradtional opening line with a variation on the answering (last) line:
Good morning blues, blues how do you do,
Good morning blues, blues how do you do,
Babe, I feel alright, but I come to worry you!
Good Morning Blues is usually a converstion with the blues. The blues becomes a person and the singer converses with the blues. I use the related, "Woke up this morning, blues round my bed" lyrics in my version of Good Mornin' Blues. The "Woke up this morning" line is found in most versions including Leadbelly's classic version.
Collected by Odum [Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson, Negro Workaday Songs (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1926)]:
Usally the first line is repeated:
Well, I woke up dis mornin', Had blues all 'round my bed;
Well, I woke up dis mornin', Had blues all 'round my bed;
I believe to my soul, Blues gonna kill me dead.
Since "Good Morning blues" is a floating verse found in many blues, a version would need to have one other related verse involving a conversation with the blues or using the "woke up dis morning" verse.
Woke Up this Morning, Blues All Around My Bed - Asa Martin, vocal and guitar (Rec: Mark Wilson and Gus Meade, Irvine, Ky, Fall, 1972). In Abbott and Seroff's useful compendium of late nineteenth century newspaper clippings (Out of Sight) there appears the following arresting item, extracted from a newspaper column of 1893 entitled 'The Blues':
“What's the matter with you today, are you downhearted?”
“I've got de blues.”
“The blues - what do you call the blues?”
“I deavor to tell you or in odder words to slanify de blues to you. You see the blues am dis: when you git up in de mawnin, you feel worse; you put you clothing on, mope about and you feel wus; den you go down to yer brekfust and you can't eat, and den you feels wuser...”
This resemblance to Asa's song and Leadbelly's Good Morning Blues (SF 40045) is palpable and suggests that this combination of early blues lyric and spoken recitative was firmly in place within the minstrel and medicine show repertory by the early 1890s. I didn't have the wit to press Asa precisely about where he learned this specific piece (he generally preferred telling one that he wrote everything) but I do know that he learned many of his blackface minstrel numbers from his father (such as the Dr Ginger Blue issued on Rdr 0034), which would easily date his 'blues' routine to the very early 1900s. Abbott and Seroff claim that their clipping is the first known definitive use of 'blues' in its modern musical sense.
Portions of Asa's lyrics show up frequently in later songs, such as the Jimmy Rushing/Count Basie/Eddie Durham classic performed most gloriously by the Kansas City Six in the famous Spirituals to Swing concert.
Woke Up this Morning, Blues All Around My Bed/GOOD MORNIN' BLUES- Asa Martin
Woke up this morning, had the blues all around my bed (x2)
Didn't have no sweet mama to hold my aching head.
“Good morning, blues, good morning blues
'Blues, how do you do?
I'm three times seven and I know what I ought to do.”
Spoken: My daddy he comes in one morning and said, “Son, what's a-matter with you - you're looking awful blue?” I says, “Pap, I is blue. You'd be too if you had the same trouble I's got.” “Son, there ain't no use having no trouble. What's your trouble?” I said:
“My gal done left me, left me all alone
My good gal done left me, left me all alone
She even told me, she wasn't going to come back home.”
Spoken: And my dad told me:
“Don't never let a woman *worry your mind
“Don't never let one woman worry your mind
Just take your little roll of greenbacks, boy, you can get eight or nine.”
Well, the gal I love had teeth like a lighthouse on the sea
That gal I love had teeth like a lighthouse on the sea
And every time she smiled, she throwed them lights all over me.
These roads are rocky, they won't be rocky long
Roads are kinda getting rocky, but they can't stay rocky long
I'll get me a new mama, I'll sing that rocky song.
*pronounced "weary"
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