Remember Georgia Smith

Georgia Smith from Middlesboro, Kentucky would be a hundred and one years old today and she would still be obscure even though she was responsible for one of the most influential songs of the twentieth century. 

Musicologist Allan Lomax recorded Georgia singing the song in 1937. He called it "Risin' Sun Blues."

Twenty four years later, in Greenwhich Village, Bob Dylan learned the song from Dave Van Ronk. At the time, Dylan was working on his first album and although he had never done the song before, he decided to include it in his first album on November 20, 1961.

What is the House of the Rising Sun. Is it a brothel. Is it a prison?  Is it a BDSM dungeon? Is it all three? The only thing we know for sure is that it's located in New Orleans and the original lyrics are cast in the female gender. Dylan kept that perspective in his rendition.

Dylan wasn't the first to record "House of the Risin' Sun". Woody Guthrie, Josh White and Leadbelly had made obscure recordings of the song always sung from the viewpoint of a woman.

When Dylan made his first album, he was even more obscure than the songs that he was bringing to life but he was starting to become noticed, most particularly by Albert Hammond who believed in "Bobby" and signed him to Columbia records.

By 1964, the English invasion had overwhelmed American music. I was in college. Everywhere we roamed, somebody was playing Beatles music. I had "long" hair which some of my professors saw as threatening. I started a band with some other "long hairs".

Dylan was pretty well known by this time, especially amongst the "hootenanny crowd" that didn't care for electric guitars or popular music. Amongt this cohort the argument was who's better Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan?

Then one day, I was in my dorm room listening to the radio when I heard two songs that changed everything. The Byrd's doing "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the Animal's singing, "House of the Rising Sun." Neither song was boy meets girl, moon and June and swoon. They both were arpaggio front loaded visions of a wrorld that I was unfamiliar with except for my dreams and nightmares. Tambourine Man jingled and jangled. Rising Sun pounded and groaned.

Neither song was "kid shit".

When the Animal's did their version of House, they changed the narrator of the song from feminine to masculine and the voice of Eric Burdon soulfully expressed the enraged remorse of a wounded, bitter man. In June 1964, the Animals reached number 1 in the British charts. It took awhile for the song to catch fire over here and when it did, I was in my dorm listening to the radio. 

Dylan wrote Tambourine Man and unearthed Rising Sun.

I immediately recognized what would happen if Dylan continued to meld his genius with electricity and rock and roll which is what the Byrds had done with Tambourine Man.

When Dylan first recorded House, he did it in 3 takes. The third take was the best. That take still lives today and can be heard on Dylan's very first album.

I don't know excatly how many takes it took for the Animals to produce their classic. I can't imagine any of them thinking that their performance on those particular days would still be alive sixty years later, preserved forever in time; forever young, forever angry, forever wandering. 

Dylan's 82 now.

82

Nineteen years younger than Georgia Smith would be if she had survived.

Dylan took his version of her song into a studio so did Eric Burdon.

Their renditions will last forever.

Her rendition is unknown.

Bring her back to life for a moment the next time that you hear "House of the Rising Sun" which will probably not be too long from now.