“I’ve Got the Dallas Blues and the Main Street Heart Disease”
by Paula Bosse
by Paula Bosse
“Dallas Blues” is an important milestone in the history of blues music. I gather this may be debatable, but it is cited as being the first “true blues song” ever published (at least by sources on Wikipedia). Written sometime before 1909 by Hart A. Wand, a white musician in Oklahoma, “Dallas Blues” was published as an instrumental in 1912; in 1918, lyrics were added by Lloyd Garrett.
I have to admit, when I read the opening lyrics, I assumed it was your typical Dallas-inspired ditty about how Dallas is a cold and heartless city that will chew you up and spit you out:
When your money’s gone, friends have turned you down,
And you wander ’round just like a houn’ (a lonesome houn’),
Then you stop to say, ‘Let me go away
From this old town (this awful town).’
But then the next lines are:
There’s a place I know folks won’t pass me by,
Dallas, Texas, that’s the town I cry! (Oh hear me cry!)
And I’m going back, going back to stay
There till I die (until I die).
Ha! That was unexpected.
Below are a few versions of “Dallas Blues” — fast and slow, some with vocals, and one hot instrumental. Enjoy. I hope those juicy peaches are still hanging on your trees!
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Ted Lewis’ version from 1931, with Fats Waller’s first vocal appearance on record and Benny Goodman on clarinet. Most of the lyrics have been left out, but this is great
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Louis Armstrong’s recording, from 1929:
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George Lewis’ slowed-down version:
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And, lastly, Isham Jones’ instrumental version — this one is hopping!
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Sources & Notes
Sheet music from an Art & Seek story on Texas Blues (with sound clips) by Jerome Weeks, here.
Wikipedia entry on the song, here.
Complete lyrics to the song, here.
I’ve got the Dallas Blues and the Main Street heart disease
(It’s buzzin’ ’round),
Buzzin’ ’round my head like a swarm of little honey bees
(Of honey bees).
Interested in Dallas-related blues songs? Check out my previous post “Deep Ellum / Deep Elm / Deep Elem Blues,” here.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
[…] I wrote about another interesting song, “Dallas Blues” — considered by many to be the first blues song ever published — in the post “I’ve Got the Dallas Blues and Main Street Heart Disease,” here. […]
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“Dallas Blues” is definitely not the first published blues “song,” because it didn’t have lyrics added to it until 1918, and it’s also definitely not the first published blues music, because e.g. “I Got The Blues” by Antonio Maggio was published in 1908.
Oklahomans were quite into blues music pretty early. Bud Brownie was Oklahoma-based and was singing “All Night Long” in 1912. Billy House was Oklahoma-based and cowrote “Blues” — an extremely early example of published boogie-woogie blues — in 1914. Willard Robison had moved to Oklahoma when he published “Oklahoma Blues” in 1915. A visiting band who performed “Memphis Blues” at the Oklahoma state prison in 1915 said it went over huge. Clyde Divers was an Oklahoman and he published “Aviation Blues” in 1918. (Blues music was already in places like Tennessee and Louisiana in about 1905.)
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Interesting that you could not find any examples of African American artists singing “Deep Ellum Blues.” I was convinced that I had heard a recording of the song by Leadbelly, and spent some time searching for it in my copies of his recordings on Smithsonian Folkways. Guess what, it’s not there, but boy did I have a good time listening to those songs again, more than two hundred of them.
I would be interested to see a post on your blog concerning Leadbelly’s time in Dallas, where he and other early African American blues artists got started by giving street performances.
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