JAIL HOUSE BLUES

Created on 03/01/2006
Latest update on 06/02/2024

Artist: Whistler & His Jug Band
Author: traditional
Label: Gennett
Year: 1924

Real name: Buford Threlkeld. Neither Robert Wilkins' Jail House Blues, nor Sleepy John Estes' or Bessie Smith's (see there). This is the Jail House Blues Jimmie Rodgers cut as In The Jailhouse Now.

Covers:

1927:

Jim Jackson [as In The Jailhouse Now]

1927:

Blind Blake & Gus Cannon [idem]

1927:

Earl McDonald's Original Louisville Jug Band [as She's In The Graveyard Now]

1928:

Jimmie Rodgers [as He's In The Jailhouse Now, follow up of Blue Yodel #1; probably learned it from black performers during his medicine show days]

1929:

Frankie Marvin [as In The Jailhouse Now]

1930:

Bill Bruner [idem]

1930:

Memphis Sheiks [alias The Memphis Jug Band]

1932:

Jack Hylton

1953:

Joe Liggins [melody in Whiskey, Women & Loaded Dice]

1954:

Stick McGhee [idem]

1955:

Webb Pierce [n°1 C&W; Jimmie Rodgers imitator]

1962:

Johnny Cash

1965:

Sir Douglas Quintet

1967:

Ernest Tubb

1971:

Roy Book Binder [as In The Jailhouse Now]

1977:

Sonny James

1978:

Guy Clark

1982:

Willie Nelson & Webb Pierce

1994:

Suzy Bogguss & Chet Atkins

1997:

Steve Earle [on tribute cd The Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers]

2000:

Soggy Bottom Boys ft. Tim Blake Nelson [in film O Brother, Where Art Thou]

2001:

Dale Watson

2008:

Little Pink Anderson

2013:

BR5-49 [all as In The Jailhouse Now]

Ernest Rogers, a white journalist from Atlanta, claimed he sang the song on radio in 1922. According to double cd Good For What Ails You - Music Of The Medicine Shows 1926-1937, the song was introduced in 1919 by black vaudeville team Marshall & Davis as He's In The Jailhouse Now.

Contact


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)

info@originals.be

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