Artist	Song
Louis Armstrong	St. Louis Blues
Bessie Smith w/ Louis Armstrong	St. Louis Blues
Albert Ammons	St. Louis Blues
Emmett Miller	St. Louis Blues
Django Reinhardt	St. Louis Blues
David Grisman, Mike Auldridge, Bob Brozman	St. Louis Blues
Doc & Merle Watson	St. Louis Blues
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	St. Louis Blues (Part 2)
The Boswell Sisters	St. Louis Blues
The Mills Brothers	St. Louis Blues
Lonnie Johnson & Elmer Snowden	St. Louis Blues
Etta James	St. Louis Blues
Sun Ra	St. Louis Blues
Count Basie & Ella Fitzgerald	St. Louis Blues
Duke Ellington	St. Louis Blues
Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra	St. Louis Blues
Sol Hoopii	St. Louis Blues
Sidney Bechet	St. Louis Blues
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra	St. Louis Blues (Take 1)
Louis Prima	St. Louis Blues
Illinois Jacquet	St. Louis Blues
The Hall Johnson Choir	St. Louis Blues

Comment:

In 1893, the story goes, W.C. Handy, a young down-and-out musician, was wandering the streets of St. Louis (or maybe New Orleans) when he met a tormented woman whose husband had run out on her. She told Handy, "My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea." That became Handy's inspiration for the most popular blues song of the 20th Century and a key line in the song -- the story of a sophisticated woman from St. Louis who has stolen the affection of the singer's lover. Explaining the song's opening line Handy wrote, "If you ever had to sleep on the cobbles down by the river in St. Louis, you'll understand the complaint" of "I hate to see the evenin' sun go down." Composed by Handy in Memphis, he published the song himself in 1914 after being turned down by every publisher he offered it to. The song initially went nowhere, but began to receive some notice when Handy and his partner Harry Pace moved their publishing business to New York two years later. It was first performed publicly by an unknown female impersonator. In the audience at the time was a young Ethel Waters, who acquired the performance rights from Handy and became the first woman to publicly perform the song. The song gained rapidly in popularity as stars of stage and vaudeville began to record it and it became America's first blues hit song. One source I came across said it is the most recorded song in history (although another had it second to "Silent Night"). It has become a blues and jazz standard recorded by a Who's Who of artists. It's inspired dance crazes, movies, and it's said that in the 1930s when Ethiopia was invaded by Italy, the Ethiopians adopted it as their battle hymn.
Handy explained that in writing "St. Louis Blues," he took "the humor of the coon song, the syncopation of ragtime and the spirit of Negro folk song and called it a blues." He was also inspired by the tango and habanera rhythms he heard when touring Cuba with his minstrel show in 1900. The song has three parts: a 12-bar blues verse ("I hate to see the evening sun go down") and 12-bar blues chorus ("Got the St. Louis blues, I'm blue as I can be") juxtaposed with a 16-bar habanera or Spanish-tinged bridge ("St. Louis woman with her diamond rings"). The three parts are often combined in various other ways and there are numerous other verses used by various artists. "St. Louis Blues" has proven itself endlessly adaptable as a blues, jazz and pop standard, as the variety in this mix attests.

The basic song:
I hate to see that evenin' sun go down,
I hate to see that evenin' sun go down,
'Cause my baby, he done lef' this town.
Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today,
Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today.
I'll pack my trunk, and make my getaway.
St. Louis woman, with her diamond rings
Pulls that man around by her apron strings.
If it weren't for powder and for store-bought hair,
The man I love wouldn't have gone nowhere.
Got the St. Louis blues just as blue as I can be
That man got a heart like a rock cast in the sea.
Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me.

Other verses sometimes added:
I love my man like a schoolboy loves his pie,
Like a Kentucky Colonel loves his mint an' rye.
I'll love my baby 'til the day I die.
A black-headed woman make a freight train jump the track,
Said a black-headed gal make a freight train jump the track;
But a long tall gal makes a preacher ball the jack.
Takes a blonde-headed woman make a good man leave this town
I said blonde-headed woman makes a good man leave this town
But a red-headed woman make a boy slap his papa down.
Oh Mama, Mama look at Sam,
Oh Mama, won't you look at Sam,
He's eaten' all the meat and lickin' at the fryin' pan.

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