Artist: Tampa Red
Author: Hudson Whittaker
Label: Vocalion
Year: 1934
Yank Rachell's Sugar Farm Blues, cut that same year, has too much it's own tune and words. The three year older Sugar Man Blues by Bessie Smith (under alias St. Louis Bessie for Vocalion) floats between this title and Memphis Minnie's risqué Bumble Bee (see there).
Covers:
Sonny Boy Williamson [at his first session for Bluebird with Good Morning School Girl on the flip side and with Robert Nighthawk on influential harp solo; he cut a Sugar Mama Blues N°2 later that year]
Peetie Wheatstraw [as Sugar Man; he played piano on Bessie Smith's Sugar Man Blues in '30]
Tommy McClennan [as New Sugar Mama Blues]
Lightnin' Hopkins [as Sugar Mama]
John Lee Hooker [idem; who also covered Memphis Minnie's Bumble Bee (see there)]
Lightnin' Slim [as Sugar Plum voor Excello]
B.B. King [as Sugar Mama]
Doctor Ross [idem]
Big Joe Williams [as Sugar Baby]
Howlin' Wolf [as My Country Sugar Mama; a live version as Sugar Mama that same year]
Led Zeppelin [as Sugar Mama; saved-up for deluxe edition Coda in '15]
Cuby & The Blizzards [idem; live]
John Hammond [idem and in '79 with The Nighthawks]
Fleetwood Mac [with Otis Spann]
Nighthawks [als Thank You Sugar Mama]
Mike Morgan & Jim Suhler [as Where'd You Get Your Sugar From]
Mike Henderson & The Bluebloods [as My Country Sugar Mama]
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)