Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Catfish Blues

Another famous song with lots of versions

From earlyblues.com

“Catfish Blues” was another ex­ample of animal-symbolism in blues which according to Paul Oliver (see “Screening The Blues”) extended along the lines of the ‘black-snake’ motif made famous in rec­ordings by Victoria Spivey and Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1920s; interestingly, both from the state of Texas. Blues singers ad­opted the persona of animal-like characteristics, which is how most Southern whites perceived the blacks, using that persona for powerful, sexual imagery


The original


The 'famous' version
“Catfish Blues” was another ex­ample of animal-symbolism in blues which according to Paul Oliver (see “Screening The Blues”) extended along the lines of the ‘black-snake’ motif made famous in rec­ordings by Victoria Spivey and Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1920s; interestingly, both from the state of Texas. Blues singers ad­opted the persona of animal-like characteristics, which is how most Southern whites perceived the blacks, using that persona for powerful, sexual imagery

or is this more famous


3 comments:

mister anchovy said...

Didn't Bob Dylan do a song called Catfish about the baseball player?

Ron Moorby said...

A most knowledgeable comment - just rung my brother in law who must have every album ever - on the Bootleg albums

fitzgerald said...

Here is a vid of a guy doing a cover of the Dylan song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4ck98pFRmA