TAIN'T NOBODY'S BIZNESS IF I DO

Created on 10/02/2002
Latest update on 03/11/2022

Artist: Original Memphis Five
Author: Porter Grainger/Everett Robbins
Label: Pathé Actuelle
Year: 1922

Vocal by Anna Meyers. Black voice, white band. None of the members came from Memphis or even the south. Named after W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues. Co-author Porter Grainger was gay, so the words had a special meaning to him. Tune first collected by Howard Odum early in the 20th century.

Covers:

1922:

Sara Martin [with Fats Waller on piano]

1923:

Alberta Hunter [again with the Original Memphis Five]

1923:

Bessie Smith [with Clarence Williams on piano]

1923:

Lena Wilson [with author Porter Grainger]

1924:

Clarence Williams' Blue Five

1928:

Frank Stokes

1936:

Ink Spots

1949:

Jimmy Witherspoon [record span on the R&B charts]

1949:

Billie Holiday

1959:

Sam Cooke

1960:

Memphis Slim

1966:

Otis Spann

1967:

Bobby Bland

1967:

B.B. King

1968:

Ike & Tina Turner

1972:

Blinky Williams [in film Lady Sings The Blues; Diana Ross was not the only singer there]

1974:

Little Milton

1975:

Freddie King

1976:

Taj Mahal

1988:

Bugs Henderson

1993:

Johnny Copeland

1994:

Saffire

1995:

Pointer Sisters

1996:

Mary Coughlan [as a tango]

1997:

Dianne Reeves

1998:

Susan Tedeschi

2000:

Willie Nelson

2001:

Shelley Neill

2009:

Ronnie Earl

2010:

Preservation Hall Jazz Band [vocal: Steve Earle]

2010:

Jools Holland [vocal: Sam Brown]

2014:

Sid Selvidge

2017:

Bettye LaVette [on American Epic as Nobody's Dirty Business]

Not related, neither with Nobody's Bisness But My Own, sung in 1882 by the Dockstander Minstrels, nor with It's Nobody's Business But My Own, sung by Bert Williams and by Skidmore & Walker in Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic, a blackfaced comedy from 1919 (see also: I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate).

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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