Lawdy Miss Clawdy

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Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Lloyd Price
publication April 1952
Genre (s) Rhythm and Blues
text Lloyd Price
music Lloyd Price (based on Champion Jack Dupree's Junker Blues, 1941)
Award (s) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll)
Cover version
1956 Elvis Presley
Champion Jack Dupree - Junker Blues

Lawdy Miss Clawdy (also Lawdy, Miss Clawdy ) is the title of a rhythm & blues song by Lloyd Price from 1952, which became a million seller and has often been covered in rock & roll .

History of origin

Lawdy Miss Clawdy goes back to a composition by in New Orleans make Blue pianist Willie Hall, he Junker Blues (or Junker's Blues called) and was created after the 1920s. Major parts of this were borrowed for the first time by Champion Jack Dupree (vocals / piano), who had recorded his version under the title Junker Blues ( Okeh Records # 6152) in Chicago on January 28, 1941 together with bassist Wilson Swain . Dupree sang the lyrics "They call me a junco, 'cause I'm loaded all the time". It was not until Dupree that his version, published in April 1941, spread the old blues composition by Hall, who never recorded the song himself or had it registered.

It took Fats Domino eight years to use the title on his first single. In The Fat Man, recorded on December 10, 1949, with the famous 40-second piano intro , Fats Domino sings “They call me the Fat Man, 'cause I weight two hundred pounds.” Domino's intro to The Fat Man is also based on the Junker Blues by Willie Hall.

Lloyd Price had made some lyrical changes again, starting with the song title. The new title Lawdy Miss Clawdy ("Oh God, Miss Clawdy") is based on an idea of ​​the black radio announcer James "Okey Dokey" Smith of the radio station WBOK in New Orleans, who made this statement through constant repetition in the context of a coffee advertisement Trademark had made.

Linguistic backgrounds

But the broadcaster wasn't the first to use the term "lawdy". On August 8, 1934, Buddy Moss created the Blues Hey Lawdy Mama (covered by Cream in April 1970; LP Live Cream ), which was probably the model for the radio announcer.

The word was first mentioned in the 1884 novel Nights with Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris : “Lawdy mussy, Brer Rabbit! Whar my vittles? ”In the movie Gone With the Wind (US premiere on December 15, 1939) - not in Margaret Mitchell's novel -“ lawdy ”is used by the black maid Mammy. There is nothing special about the selection of Miss Clawdy (Claudia), it just rhymes with Lawdy.

admission

Lloyd Price - Lawdy Miss Clawdy

On March 13, 1952, Lloyd Price first entered Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studios in New Orleans and took Lawdy Miss Clawdy on. The recording session was produced by Dave Bartholomew , who was not satisfied with the piano work of regular session musician Salvador Ducette and replaced him with Fats Domino , who received the union-guaranteed minimum wage of US $ 54.50 for this. Domino had to ask Price to sing the beginning of the song and then decided to play it in A minor .

While the lyrical changes removed the risky allusion to a heroin addiction in the original, the music format remained on champion Jack Dupree's Junker's Blues . Price sings in his version “girl, you sure look good to me. Well, please don't excite me, baby, tho 'it can't be me. ”Lloyd Price is accompanied by the Dave Bartholomew Orchestra with Herb Hardesty (tenor saxophone), Joe Harris (alto saxophone), Ernest McLean (guitar), Frank Fields (bass) and Earl Palmer (drums).

Publication and Success

Lawdy Miss Clawdy / Mailman Blues (Specialty 428) was released in April 1952. Despite the difficulties of presenting a "black" song on the white market because of the existing racial segregation, Lawdy Miss Clawdy achieved the breakthrough, topped the Rhythm & Blues hit parade for seven weeks and sold over a million times. As a crossover , it was also successful in the white market, but without reaching the pop hit parade. Specialty Records owner Art Rupe confirmed it was the first recording by a black teenager to sell over a million copies. For Specialty Records, the title was only their third number one hit .

Lawdy Miss Clawdy became one of the foundations of rock and roll sound and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of 500 songs that shaped rock and roll music .

Cover versions

There are at least 169 cross-style covers of Lawdy Miss Clawdy , including Elvis Presley (recorded February 3, 1956 at RCA Studios in New York, released August 1956), Roy Orbison & Teen Kings (KOSA-TV, Odessa; December 31 , 1956) May 1956), Larry Williams (LP Here's Larry Williams ; December 1959), Little Richard (LP Little Richard is Back ; June 1964, released August 1964), Johnny Rivers (LP At the Whiskey à Go Go ; February 1964), Buckinghams (March 1967), Joe Cocker (November 1969), Ronnie Hawkins (August 1972), Conway Twitty (1974), Mickey Gilley (August 1976) or Paul McCartney (October 31, 1988). The title received a BMI award.

The song title was the basis for similar titles in rock & roll, in particular Dizzy Miss Lizzy or Good Golly Miss Molly .

Cover versions (if not mentioned in the text)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jet Magazine, February 20, 1958, p. 62.
  2. ↑ "Lawdy Miss Clawdy ... it's time to drink up ..."
  3. ↑ It is widely believed that this was the writing of the word "lordy", a euphemism for "Lord" in black slaves, and expressed surprise / surprise. Memindex about Lawdy
  4. ^ Joel Chandler Harris, Nights With Uncle Remus, Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation , 1928 edition, p. 235.
  5. ↑ "Lawdy Mr. Rhett that ain't nothin 'but my red silk petticoat you done give me!"
  6. ↑ Tom Aswell, Louisiana Rocks! , 2009, p. 59.
  7. ^ Francis Davis, The History of the Blues , 2003, p. 54.
  8. ↑ a b Rick Coleman, Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock 'n Roll , 2006, pp. 72f.
  9. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 75.
  10. ↑ with a young Jimi Hendrix (guitar)