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If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)
Artist: Marion Harris
Author: Roger Graham/Spencer Williams/Dave Peyton
Label: Victor
Year: 1916
Millionseller. In 1914 I Ain't Got Nobody was copyrighted by Charles Warfield and David Young. In 1915 Spencer Williams and Dave Peyton copyrighted the almost similar I Ain't Got Nobody Much and that song was published in 1916, crediting the music to Williams and the lyrics to music publisher Roger Graham. Later that year Chicago music publisher Frank K. Root bought both songs, sending a version of each in competition. The Williams/Graham version caught on.
Covers:
Three Yodelers [with Milton Brown]
Emmett Miller & His Georgia Crackers [with Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey]
Bob Wills [vocal: Tommy Duncan, in '32 his ticket to The Texas Playboys line-up]
Louis Prima [as Just A Gigolo (I Ain't Got Nobody)]
Preservation Hall Jazz Band [vocal: Buddy Miller]
Later Spencer Williams also wrote Basin Street Blues and Careless Love, the latter with W.C. Handy. He also handled the famous Revue Nègre while choosing for then unknown Josephine Baker to be its star and made the right decision to bring that show to more liberal, less prude and less racist Paris in 1925.
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)