Artist: Prince's Orch.
Author: Robert Hoffman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1909
Just like Arkansas, Alabama frequently represented the whole South in song and the Alabama Bound was a dance where partners held each other as close as with the Bunny Hug and other risqué dances.
Covers:
Papa Charlie Jackson [later also as Elder Greene Blues (see footnote)]
Henry Thomas [as Don't Leave Me Here and in '28 as Don't Ease Me In; situates it in the cane cutting fields along the Brazos River in Texas; in '29 as Don't You Leave Me Here]
Gene Autry [as Atlanta Bound]
Pete Harris [Lomax recording; their second discovery (after Lead Belly)]
Lead Belly [as Alabama Bound; in '40 with the Golden Gate Quartet and in '46 with Woody Guthrie & Cisco Houston]
Rich Brown [John A. Lomax recording; called this a levee camp song]
Washboard Sam [as Don't You Leave Me Here]
Jelly Roll Morton [idem, but also as I'm Alabama Bound, which he claimed as his own composition, written while playing barrelhouses in Mobile, Alabama in 1905]
Odetta [as Alabama Bound]
Lonnie Donegan [as I'm Alabammy Bound]
Ramblin' Jack Elliott [as Alabammy Bound]
Pete Seeger [as Alabama Bound]
Mississippi John Hurt [idem]
Dave Van Ronk [as Don't You Leave Me Here]
Jim Kweskin Jug Band [as Don't You Leave Me Here; crediting Jelly Roll Morton]
Mickie Finn [as Alabamy Bound]
Tee Set [as Don't You Leave]
Van Morrison-Lonnie Donegan-Chris Barber [as Alabamy Bound]
Roger McGuinn [with Pete Seeger]
Guy Davis [as Don't You Leave Me Here]
Not to be confused with Alabamy Bound (see there). Papa Harvey Hull & Long Clive Reed had a Don't You Leave Me Here tapping from Another Man Done Gone and Baby Please Don't Go. Paul Oliver's Songsters & Saints reports a Texan collector's 1908 version of Alabama Bound with lyric lines from Elder Greene, a song recorded in the 1920's by Charley Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Charlie Jackson, who cut both songs, closes the circle.
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)