Somewhere there must exist a recording of Big Bill Broonzy's Constipation Blues. Unfortunately, even in the age of the Internet, I have found no evidence of either a performance or the lyric. Yes, a Google search will yield up Screamin Jay Hawkins doing a tune about the same affliction but not the 12 bar Blues of legend.
About 40 years ago one of the kids I knew, Harry Hayes, would from time to time issue forth a tuneful statement in mock Blues format: "I got 'dem old constipation blues". Curious to the provenance of the line, he told me it came from a Chicago Blues musician named Big Bill Broonzy. Unfortunately, no one had the record.
Being a resourceful young man and appreciating the sentiment of a song about constipation, I thought about writing my own version. With my Silvertone acoustic guitar in hand I went over Mike Beane's house on Aycock St. in Greensboro, N.C. There also at the time was Alan Thornton, guitarist extraordinaire,(who would later grow up to play with Nantucket) with his Kay electric (a radical improvement over my Silvertone). Together we three produced a 12 bar paean to constipation. It's a standard E7, A7 and B7 blues -- no copyright infringement here. The verses wail about high school and our discontents and climax in the chorus:
Oh baby I'm constipated... I'm so full of it
Oh baby I'm constipated... sure wish I could do it
I got 'dem ole... constipation blues..
Mercifully, this marked the end of our song writing career. I have sung this gem around many campfires and other gatherings. Once at the Gettysburg Bluegrass festival, a friend, Maryanne Seifert, told us about someone at another campsite singing "my" song. An immediate search of the area did not yield up the body of this wandering minstrel. Who knows, maybe he was playing something close to the Big Bill Broonzy legend or maybe he had heard me wailing away earlier. It doesn't take a whole lot to pick this tune up and make it your own.
There you have it. If any of you Blues aficionados out there know any more about this legend feel free to add below. If any of the above characters I mention have an even clearer recollection of this story, comment away.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment