RED CROSS BLUES

Created on 23/10/2008
Latest update on 12/03/2022

Artist: Alabama Sam
Author: Walter Roland
Label: Perfect/Banner/Melotone/Paramount
Year: 1933

Alias for author Walter Roland. Also as Red Cross Blues #2 for Melotone. About the desastrous situation following the flood of 1927 in the Mississippi Delta. Thousands of homeless black laborers were corraled on top of Indian burial mounds or levees at gunpoint so that cotton farmers wouldn't lose their man power. If the Red Cross wouldn't have reacted as they did, no one would have known nor cared. That's when world attention was first drawn to the Delta, not by the blues. Red Cross supplies (including tents and beds) were seized by the planters and sold instead of distributed. Worse: anyone desperate enough to come to that Red Cross Store for help was regarded as a beggar or hoodlum, seized and forced to join the chain gangs working on the broken levees.

Covers:

1933:

Lucille Bogan [as Red Cross Man and recorded the same day as Walter Roland's version, who joined in on piano; Lucille used alias Bessie Jackson on the label]

1933:

Sonny Scott [also two versions]

1934:

Pete Harris [as Red Cross Store]

1935:

Lead Belly [as Red Cross Store; Lomax recording; Lead Belly's No No No's remind Amy Winehouse's in Rehab!]

1960:

Forrest City Joe [idem]

1962:

Mississippi Fred McDowell [as Red Cross Store Blues]

1964:

Koerner, Ray & Glover [as Red Cross Store]

1989:

Boogie Bill Webb [idem]

2000:

Philadelphia Jerry Ricks

2005:

Eric Burdon

Not to be confused with the Red Cross Blues by Walter Davis ('34), nor with his Red Cross Blues #2, covered by Josh White as Welfare Blues. Welfare Store Blues (Lead Belly, Sonny Terry and Sonny Boy Williamson) and Welfare Blues (Speckled Red) use the same melody.

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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