Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides information about Blind Willie McTell and showcases a sound file of that Bluesman's song
My transcription of the lyrics for this song are also included in this post.
The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Blind Willie McTell for his musical legacy. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to RagtimeDorianHenry for publishing this sound file on YouTube.
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Thanks to Gigi Erba from Italy for requesting the lyrics to this song.
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INFORMATION ABOUT BLIND WILLIE McTELL
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Willie_McTell
"Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was a Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues. Unlike his contemporaries, he came to use twelve-string guitars exclusively. McTell was also an adept slide guitarist, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. His vocal style, a smooth and often laid-back tenor, differed greatly from many of the harsher voices of Delta bluesmen such as Charley Patton. McTell performed in various musical styles, including blues, ragtime, religious music and hokum.
McTell was born in Thomson, Georgia. He learned to play the guitar in his early teens. He soon became a street performer in several Georgia cities, including Atlanta and Augusta, and first recorded in 1927 for Victor Records. He never produced a major hit record, but he had a prolific recording career with different labels and under different names in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1940, he was recorded by the folklorist John A. Lomax and Ruby Terrill Lomax for the folk song archive of the Library of Congress. He was active in the 1940s and 1950s, playing on the streets of Atlanta, often with his longtime associate Curley Weaver. Twice more he recorded professionally. His last recordings originated during an impromptu session recorded by an Atlanta record store owner in 1956. McTell died three years later, having suffered for years from diabetes and alcoholism. Despite his lack of commercial success, he was one of the few blues musicians of his generation who continued to actively play and record during the 1940s and 1950s. He did not live to see the American folk music revival, in which many other bluesmen were "rediscovered."[1]
McTell's influence extended over a wide variety of artists, including the Allman Brothers Band, who covered his "Statesboro Blues," and Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to him in his 1983 song "Blind Willie McTell," the refrain of which is "And I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell." Other artists influenced by McTell include Taj Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Ralph McTell, Chris Smither, Jack White, and the White Stripes."...
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SOUND FILE: BLIND WILLIE McTELL (1935) Blues Guitar Legend
RagtimeDorianHenry, Published on Apr 3, 2009
" Dying Gambler " (1935)
-snip-
The singer on the track "Dying Gambler" is Blind Willie McTell's wife Kate McTell, as per the booklet enclosed in the cd set that includes this song. (Thanks to Gigi Erba, from France, for this information).
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LYRICS- DYING GAMBLER*
(Blind Willie McTell)
I’ll tell you of a poor young man
Who gambling night and day
Fell sick down on his death bed
He tried but he could not breathe
His friends all helped him one by one
and he began to cry
Said “Boys oh boys don’t leave me now
For I believe I’m going to die.”
Chorus:
Now tell me where
is that gambler
Wonder where the poor man’s gone
Tell me where
is that gambler
Lord, I wonder where the poor man’s gone.
[guitar instrumental]
One man turned around and looked at him
and said to him “Oh well, I believe it myself you’re going to die
and you’re sure going to hell”.
His body began to grow so weak and his frame began to shake.
He said to the man who ran the game “I now see my mistake.
I always thought I wasn’t a fool. My conscious had me told.
While I was trying to be someone, the devil had won my soul”.
Chorus:
Now tell me where
is that gambler
Wonder where the poor man’s gone
Tell me where
is that gambler
Lord, I wonder where the poor man’s gone.
Don’t take my body to no church house
Spend nothing on my remain
Somebody will think that I am faking it
In hell I’ll be in pain
My dice I’m holding will be burning my hand
I see it and know it well
And gamblers if you do not change
I’ll meet you when you come to hell
Chorus:
Now tell me where
is that gambler
Wonder where the poor man’s gone
Tell me where
is that gambler
Lord, I wonder where the poor man’s gone.
[guitar instrumental]
-snip-
*This is my transcription of this record. Additions and corrections are welcome.
A woman sings most of the song. My guess is that this is Blind Willie McTell's wife, but I'm not sure about that.
The only line that Blind Willie McTell sings is "is that gambler".
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