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:
Sara Martin [with Fats Waller on piano]
Alberta Hunter [again with the Original Memphis Five]
Bessie Smith [with Clarence Williams on piano]
Lena Wilson [with author Porter Grainger]
Jimmy Witherspoon [record span on the R&B charts]
Blinky Williams [in film Lady Sings The Blues; Diana Ross was not the only singer there]
Mary Coughlan [as a tango]
Preservation Hall Jazz Band [vocal: Steve Earle]
Jools Holland [vocal: Sam Brown]
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).
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)