Messin' Around
"Blues in the Mississippi Night" is a legendary audio documentary recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax. In 1947, Lomax brought Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy Williamson I into a New York studio. To protect the musicians from violent retaliation for speaking openly about Jim Crow, Lomax claimed the recording was made in a Mississippi juke joint. "Messin' Around" serves as a musical interlude between their harrowing stories of racial terror and prison farms. Slim's rolling, sophisticated piano work provided a stark, beautiful contrast to the heavy, dangerous reality of the spoken-word conversations that surrounded it.
The floating-verse lineage for this recording (who else recorded it, where the melody or lyric traveled, and how it was adapted) is still being mapped. This section will trace the song's DNA across the archive.
Contributions welcome at OlMrRead@ccblues.com.