JAIL HOUSE BLUES
Created on 03/01/2006Latest update on 02/06/2022
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:
- 1953:
Joe Liggins [melody in Whiskey, Women & Loaded Dice]
- 1954:
Sticks McGhee [idem]
- 1955:
Webb Pierce [n°1 C&W; Jimmie Rodgers imitator]
- 1962:
- 1965:
- 1967:
- 1971:
Roy Book Binder [as In The Jailhouse Now]
- 1977:
- 1978:
- 1982:
- 1994:
- 1997:
Steve Earle [on tribute cd The Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers - all as In The Jailhouse Now]
- 2000:
Soggy Bottom Boys ft. Tim Blake Nelson [in film O Brother, Where Art Thou]
- 2001:
- 2008:
- 2013:
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.
