Little Brother Montgomery - Vicksburg Blues (sound file & lyrics)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part IV of a five part series about "The Forty Fours" Blues songs. This post provides a sound file and lyrics to little Brother Montgomery's song "Vicksburg Blues".

Part I of that series provides the text to the song entitled "Forty-Four" that is included in African American folklorist & Fisk Univesity professor Thomas W. Talley's 1922 collection Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise & Otherwise. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/09/forty-four-from-thomas-w-talleys-1922.html for that post.

Part II provides a sound file & lyrics to Roosevelt Sykes's song "44 Blues". Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/09/roosevelt-sykes-44-blues-sound-file.html for that post.

Part III provides information about Leothus Lee Green's song "Number 44 Blues" as well as a sound file & the lyrics to that song. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/09/leothus-lee-green-number-44-blues.html for that post.

Part V provides a sound file and lyrics to Howlin Wolf's "Forty Four". Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/09/howlin-wolf-forty-four-sound-file-lyrics_24.html for that post.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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INFORMATION ABOUT LITTLE BROTHER MONTGOMERY
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_Montgomery
"Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery (April 18, 1906 – September 6, 1985[2]) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and blues pianist and singer.[1]...

Montgomery was born in the town of Kentwood, Louisiana, a sawmill town near the Mississippi Border, across Lake Pontchartrain from the city of New Orleans, where he spent much of his childhood. As a child he looked like his father, Harper Montgomery, and was called Little Brother Harper. The name evolved into Little Brother Montgomery, a nickname which stuck. He started playing piano at the age of 4, and by age 11 he was playing at various barrelhouses in Louisiana. His own musical influences were Jelly Roll Morton who used visit the Montgomery household...

Among his original compositions are "Shreveport Farewell", "Farrish Street Jive", and "Vicksburg Blues". His instrumental "Crescent City Blues" served as the basis for a song of the same name by Gordon Jenkins, which in turn was adapted by Johnny Cash as "Folsom Prison Blues."[5]"

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SHOWCASE SOUND FILE
Little Brother Montgomery Vicksburg Blues



randomandrare, Uploaded on Sep 23, 2009

I do not own the copyright to this recording. This video is for historical and educational purposes

Composed by Eurreal Montgomery

Little Brother Montgomery:Vocals & Piano

Recorded in Grafton, WI. c. September, 1930

Originally issued on Paramount 13006 (78 RPM)

This recording taken from the 1996 4CD box set "Full Spectrum Blues, Disc 2, Piano Blues & Boogie Woogie
-snip-
Here are two comments from this sound file's viewer comment thread:
"I have a taperecording from a collector's 78, which I cherish -- one of my all-time favorites. It is slightly different than this recording."
-JimCopp, 2012o

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"I think he recorded this track four times in the 20s/30s. The one I like best is the second one. Stunning piano playing and very innovative for the time I would venture. There's a later recording without vocals on Last FM (on the Net) which is also brilliant."
-MrTimBranston, 2013

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LYRICS: VICKSBURG BLUES
(Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery)

UPDATE November 24, 2014 - I've removed my attempted transcription. Read the lyrics in the comment section below. Thanks, anonymous Nov. 23, 2014!

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SHOWCASE VIDEO
Also, thanks to anonymous for alerting me to a 1976 video of Little Brother Montgomery singing "Vicksburg Blues". Anonymous also posted the words to this version in the comment section below. Here's that video:

Little Brother Montgomery - Vicksburg Blues - Chicago (1976)



RawBluesTV, Published on Aug 27, 2012

Little Brother Montgomery piano & vocal
Produced by Maddalena Fagandini & Giles Oakley (BBC TV series)
Recorded in Chicago, Jan. 29, 1976

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Thanks to Little Brother Montgomery for his music legacy. Thanks also to those who are quoted in this post. And thanks to the publisher of this song file on YouTube.

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