house of the rising sun by the cass rox band with mike johnson on drums
cassandra roxanne on bass guitar and vocals
d. logan foster on guitar
Like many classic folk ballads, the authorship of "The House of the Rising Sun" is uncertain. Musicologists say that it is based on the tradition of broadside ballads such as the Unfortunate Rake of the 18th century which were taken to America by early settlers. Many of these had the theme of "if only" and after a period of evolution, they emerge as American songs like the Streets of Laredo. The tradition of the blues combined with these in which the telling of a sad story has a therapeutic effect.
The oldest known existing recording is by versatile Smoky Mountain artists Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster and was made in 1933. Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Texas Alexander's The Risin' Sun, which was recorded in 1928, is sometimes mentioned as the first recording, but this is a completely different song. The Callahan Brothers recorded the song in 1934.
The song may still have to been lost to posterity until it was collected by folklorist Alan Lomax. Lomax and his father were curators of the Archive of American Folk Song for the Library of Congress from 1932. They searched the country for songs. On an expedition with his wife to eastern Kentucky Lomax set up his recording equipment in Middlesborough, Kentucky in the house of someone called Tilman Cable. On 15 Sept 1937 he recorded a performance by Georgia Turner, the 16 year-old daughter of a miner. He called it The Risin' Sun Blues. Lomax later recorded a different version sung by Bert Martin. Lomax in his seminal 1941 songbook, Our Singing Country, wrote that the melody was taken from a traditional English ballad, Matty Groves, and the lyrics written by a pair of Kentuckians named Georgia Turner and Bert Martin, probably because he was unaware of earlier recordings by other artists[1][2].
Roy Acuff, who recorded the song commercially on November 3, 1938, may have learned the song from Clarence Ashley with whom he sometimes performed. In 1941, Woody Guthrie recorded a version. In late 1948 Lead Belly recorded a version called "In New Orleans" in the sessions that later became the album Lead Belly's Last Sessions (1994, Smithsonian Folkways). In 1957 Glenn Yarbrough recorded the song for Elektra Records.
Year 1962 Bob Dylan released a track with the song on his first and self-titled album, Bob Dylan. It is spoken in an interview that Dave Van Ronk was also going to record it at the same time, and that Bob Dylan got the idea of recording it from him.
An interview with Eric Burdon of The Animals revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle and it was sung by a Northumbrian folk singer called Johnny Handle. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing[3]. This interview refutes assertions that the inspiration for The Animals' arrangement came directly from Dylan's recording, from Josh White or Nina Simone (who recorded it before Dylan on Nina at the Village Gate). Regardless, the Animals enjoyed a huge hit with the song, much to Dylan's chagrin when his version was referred to as a cover of The Animals' version - the irony of which was not lost on Van Ronk. Dave Van Ronk went on record as saying that the whole issue was a "tempest in a teapot", and that Dylan stopped playing the song after The Animals' hit because fans accused Dylan of plagiarizing the Animals' version. Bob Dylan has said he first heard The Animals' version on his automobile radio and "jumped out of his car seat" because he liked it so much.
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6:09ERIC BURDON - House Of The Rising Sun, 2010 Sta...by balkanigerle13,098 views
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