Cotton Pickers "I WISH I COULD SHIMMY LIKE MY SISTER KATE" (1922)

"I Wish I could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate"
Words and Music by A.J. Piron
Performed by The Cotton Pickers
Brunswick 2338
Recorded September 1922, New York

Personnel:
Phil Napoleon - trumpet
Miff Mole - trombone
Jimmy Lytell - clarinet
Frank Signorelli - piano
John Cali - banjo
John Helleberg - tuba
Jack Roth - drums

The Cotton Pickers was Brunswick's chosen generic name for its purveyors of blues fox trots and throughout the 1920s the name was used on a considerable number of issues, even though the range of repertoire broadened and the personnel metamorphosed several times. The anchorman of the first generation to bear the Cotton Pickers name was trumpeter Phil Napoleon, a legitimately trained musician with a powerful, clean (if at times unadventurous) style, and who was well known to recording executives through his work for bandleader Sam Lanin and with the Original Memphis Five.

This song romanticized a ragtime dance craze popularized by Gilda Gray. The "shimmy" involved frantic, sensous gyrations of the hips and shoulders, personifying the madcap exuberance and permissive morals of the Jazz Age. It inspired several additional songs, including "Shimee Town" (featured in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919), "Sim-Me-King Blues" (recorded by Mamie Smith in 1921), and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings' "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" (1923). The first recording of "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" was made by a very young Bessie Smith. The singer, then unknown, used the song as an audition record for Okeh Phonograph Company in 1921. The pianist was none other than Clarence Williams, who also organized the session. The record was never issued however.

It has been said that Louis Armstrong sold the song for $50 in 1918, but was never given recognition as the composer.
(Notes from "Classic Jazz A Personal View of the music and the Musicians" - by Floyd Levin and Benny Carter)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Cotton Pickers
• Phil
• Napoleon
• Miff
• Mole
• 1922
• 78
• rpm
• shimmy
• shimmee
• shimmie
• jazz
• dance
• roaring
• twenties
• ragtime
• Piron

[geofbrit59]

Great video! Cool song, lots of images & information. If you are using Photoshop to clean up labels (like me) try using the rubber stamp tool, you won't be able to see the touch-ups.

[bsgs98]

Thanks for the comment. I use PS Elements (the junior version of Photoshop). I have a clone stamp tool... is that the same as the rubber stamp tool? I save as 640x400 .wmv but YouTube always manages to reduce the quality.

[geofbrit59]

Yes, Same tool. Try it! I don't know the images look nice and clear to me.

[fillra]

And here are those words:

"Why don't you get off Katie's head?

Why don't you keep out of Katie's bed?

It's a shame this very day She's like a little child at play,

It's a shame how your lyin' on her head,

I thought sure you would kill her dead, Why don't you be nice, boy - and take my advice,

Keep off Katie's head, I mean - get out of Katie's bed."

There's another verse by teenage Louis which I can't trace now, but it was something about sticking a finger up (deceased) Big Katie's ass...

[eldon12000]

Thanks for sharing this. Love it, and the images...thanks also for identifying the well known players!

[fillra]

Clarence Williams, the pianist and bandleader from the 20s, claimed copyright on this along with Armand Piron. There's a (probably true) story by Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory that Louis had a version of this tune going before 1920, composed by himself, and it was copied down by Clarence Williams, and Louis got $50 for it... but no composer-credit. Kid Ory said that the words were "too dirty" to repeat to a jazz interviewer because they related to a murdered New Orleans prostitute, Kate Townsend.