Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out

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Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
Bessie Smith
publication September 13, 1929
length 3:00
Genre (s) blues
Author (s) Jimmy Cox
Label Columbia Records

Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out is a pop song written by Jimmy Cox that was released in 1923. In addition to a verse, the ballad has a 16-bar chorus and is in the AA song form . The song is also played in traditional jazz and has become the standard there and in the blues genre .

First versions

The track was first recorded in 1927 by Bobby Leecan under the pseudonym Blind Bobby Baker. On January 15, 1929, Pinetop Smith also recorded Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out in Chicago .

The ballad became popular with Bessie Smith's single ( B-side Take it Right Back ). Your version with pianist Clarence Williams and his orchestra to the here trumpeter Ed Allen , the tuba player Cyrus St. Clair and several saxophonists like Garvin Bushell and probably Arville Harris , Greely Walton belonged, was on May 15, 1929 New York added . The track, released six weeks before the stock market crash on September 13, 1929, is considered her best known recording and made the song famous. It was only Smith's interpretation, in which she stretched the melody and changed it in other ways, that the song was no longer perceived as a hit, but rather approached the blues.

Cover versions

In the field of jazz and blues, the song was covered over 200 times from the 1920s, including a. by Pinetop Smith (1928), Eddie Condon (1943), Josh White (1945), Bertha Hill , Hociel Thomas (1946), Claire Austin , Chris Barber / Ottilie Patterson , Sidney Bechet , Juanita Hall (with Claude Hopkins , Coleman Hawkins , Buster Bailey ), Dick Hyman , Howard McGhee , Odetta (with Buck Clayton , Vic Dickenson ), Lu Watters , the Old Merry Tale Jazzband , Eva Olmerová with the Traditional Jazz Studio and BB King ( Let the Good Times Roll: The Music of Louis Jordan ). Other recordings were made by Graeme Bell , the Dutch Swing College Band , Turk Murphy , Louis Jordan , Nina Simone , Ruby Braff and Jimmy Witherspoon / Ben Webster . Also Scrapper Blackwell , King Curtis , Barbra Streisand , Liza Minnelli , John Lennon and Otis Redding coverten the song.

Eric Clapton not only recorded the song with Derek and the Dominos in 1970 ( Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs ), but also interpreted the song acoustically on his album Unplugged . According to the Norwegian music journalist Morten Holgersson, Clapton made the song “more sensual [and] modern” for this interpretation, in particular by switching between “playing the guitar with a plectrum ” and “ plucking the strings ”. Holgersson rated the acoustic cover version as "tactically clever" and "very percussive". American critic Will Branson praised Clapton's performance of the piece and also highlighted Ray Cooper's work as a percussionist and Chuck Leavell's piano playing . In Argentina , the title was decoupled in 1992, took 8th place in the local singles charts and in 1994 received a gold record for more than 50,000 records sold.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Carlo Bohländer : Reclam's jazz guide . Stuttgart 1970, p. 923
  2. ^ Perfect 133, Pathé Actuelle 7533
  3. ^ Vocalion 1256
  4. ↑ Discogs
  5. ^ Dennis McNally: On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom . 2014, p. 160
  6. ↑ Chris Albertson : Bessie . Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-300-10756-2 . , P. 241
  7. ^ Karin Pendle: Women & Music: A History . Indiana University Press, 2001, p. 466
  8. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed April 27, 2015)
  9. ↑ During his time as an art student in the early 1960s, he learned to play Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (alongside Key to the Highway ) as the first track on the guitar .
  10. ↑ Eric Clapton : My Life . 3. Edition. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-0-7679-2536-5 , pp. 29, 30, 254 .
  11. ↑ Morten Holgersson: Eric Clapton nye anlegg. More critics stemme til “Unplugged” . In: Dagbladet . December 11, 1992, p. 15 , col. 2 .
  12. ^ Will Branson: Clapton Rocks the Charts . In: The Rarest Copy . 1992, p. 7 .
  13. ↑ Aciano Martinéz: Unplugged y solteros de Eric Clapton son productos Best sales en el país! CAPIF, Buenos Aires 1994, pp. 1 .