See See Rider

"See See Rider" is a traditional song that may have originated on the black vaudeville circuit. Its is similar to "Poor Boy Blues" as performed by Ramblin' Thomas.[4] Jelly Roll Morton recollected hearing the song as a young boy some time after 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana, when he performed with a spiritual quartet that played at funerals. Older band members played "See See Rider" during get-togethers with their "sweet mamas" or as Morton called them "fifth-class whores".[5]

Big Bill Broonzy claimed that "when he was about 9 or 10—that is, around 1908, in the Delta (Jefferson County, Arkansas)—he learned to play the blues from an itinerant songster named "See See Rider", "a former slave, who played a one-string fiddle ... one of the first singers of what would later be called the blues."[6] Lead Belly and Blind Lemon Jefferson performed the song in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area between 1912-1917.[7]

The song is possibly connected to the Shelton Brooks composition "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" (1913) that was inspired by the 1907 mysterious disappearance of the 28 year-old jockey Jimmy Lee, "The Black Demon", a well-known black rider who won every race on the card at Churchill Downs.[8]

Ma Rainey's rendition of "See See Rider" is based on a traditional folk 12-bar blues, such as the rendition by Lead Belly in which the lyrics follows the traditional repetition of the first line of the stanza structure (AAB). Ma Rainey's rendition opens with the three couplet introduction credited to Lena Arant that explain why the songstress is blue. The following lines are adapted in the less typical repetition of the second line of the stanza (ABB) pattern.[9][10]

Gates Thomas collected a version of "C.C. Rider" in the 1920s in south Texas. It repeated the second line of the stanza (ABB) rather than the first (AAB) that is more common in blues.[10] Folklorists recorded regional variations in stanza patterns such as ABB and ABA in Texas vs. AB in New Orleans.[11]

In October 1924 "Ma" Rainey was the first to record "See See Rider Blues" at Paramount Records New York Studio. Her Georgia Jazz Band included Louis Armstrong on cornet, Charlie Green on trombone, Buster Bailey on clarinet, Fletcher Henderson on piano, and Charlie Dixon on banjo.[12] The record was released in 1925. While the copyright listed Lena Arant as a composer, she was responsible only for the first three rhymed couplets at the beginning of the song.[9]

In 1943, a version by Wee Bea Booze reached number one on Billboard magazine's Harlem Hit Parade, a precursor of the rhythm and blues chart. Some blues critics consider this to be the definitive version of the song.[13] A doo-wop version was recorded by Sonny Til and the Orioles in 1952. Later rocked-up hit versions were recorded by Chuck Willis (as "C.C. Rider," a number one R&B hit and a number 12 pop hit in 1957) and LaVern Baker (number nine R&B and number 34 pop in 1963).

Other popular performances were recorded by Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels (as part of the medley "Jenny Take a Ride!", number 10 US pop in 1965) and the Animals (number 10 US pop in 1966). The Animals' version (featuring keyboard accompaniment by Dave Rowberry)[14] also reached number one on the Canadian RPM chart and number eight in Australia. The arrangement of the song was credited to Rowberry.[15]

In his later years, Elvis Presley, having befriended Wayne Cochran in Las Vegas and admired his band's performing of the song, regularly opened his performances with the song,[16] as in the performance recorded for his 1970 album On Stage and in his television specials Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite and Elvis In Concert.

In 2004, Mama Rainey's "See See Rider" was selected for the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress to preserve its legacy for future generations.[12] In 2004, her recording received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Film director Martin Scorsese credited the song with stimulating his interest in music. He commented:

One day, around 1958, I remember hearing something that was unlike anything I'd ever heard before ... The music was demanding, "Listen to me!" ... The song was called "See See Rider," which I already knew from the Chuck Willis cover version. The name of the singer was Lead Belly ... I found an old Folkways record by Lead Belly ... And I listened to it obsessively. Lead Belly's music opened something up for me. If I could have played guitar, really played it, I never would have become a filmmaker.[17]

In 2018, the Blues Foundation inducted "See See Rider" into the Blues Hall of Fame as a "classic of blues recording".[18] In addition to hit singles, it notes the song's popularity among "blues, soul, jazz, pop, country, and rock performers".[18]

John "Big Nig" Bray, the leader of a crew that hauled cypress logs from Louisiana swamps in the 1930s, borrowed the frame and tune of "See See Rider" for his "Trench Blues" (1934), a semi-autobiographical heroic blues ballad recounting the experience of an African American soldier in World War I, as recorded by Alan Lomax.[19] "See See Rider" was among the most known African American play party songs in Alabama in the 1950s.[20]

The spelling of the song name See See Rider is likely a pronunciation spelling of "C.C.Rider". Many sources indicate that "c.c. rider" refers to either early "church circuit" traveling preachers who did not have established churches or "county circuit" riders who were attorneys following a circuit judge.[21][22] Debra Devi, a researcher of the language of the blues, recorded a hypothesis that during the American Civil War C.C. stood for Cavalry Corporal, a horseman officer. Riding is the most common metaphor for sexual intercourse in the blues. The rider is a term for a sexual partner. In African American usage "rider" can be either male or female.[23] This folk etymology appears to stem from somebody by the name Alex Washburn who came across this interpretation of "c.c. rider" in a folk song collection by Alan Lomax, a prominent American field researcher of folk music.[24]

The term see see rider is usually taken as synonymous with easy rider[25] (an unscrupulous man living off his lover's earnings). In dirty blues songs it often refers though to a woman who had liberal sexual views, had been married more than once, or was skilled at sex. Ma Rainey's version refers to "See See Rider" as a man since in the lyrics she sings "now your GIRL done come" (Ma Rainey, Mother of the Blues CD B 1924-1928).[26] Likewise, in jazz singer and guitarist Wee Bea Booze's version of "See See Rider Blues", which reached number 1 on the US Billboard R&B chart in 1943, the well audible lyrics are "now your girl come", hence addressing a man.[27] One alternate theory would be that the term refers perhaps to a prostitute and there would be a lyric as "You made me love you, now your man done come," (source ?) "your man" would refer to the woman's pimp. In this interpretation, rather than being directed to a male "easy rider," the song would be an admonition to a prostitute to give up her evil ways.[28][29] But as Ma Rainey is known to be outspoken on women issues[30] it is unlikely that she would cast scorn on prostitutes.

There are further theories:

• Easy rider was sometimes used to refer to the partner of a hypersexual woman who therefore does not have to work or pay for sex.[28][29]
• Another theory is that the term easy rider sometimes originally referred to the guitar hung across the back of a travelling blues singer.[31]
• Big Bill Broonzy states, on his album Big Bill Broonzy (recorded in Baarn, the Netherlands, early 1956 and released late 1956), that the first time he heard that song was by a man who "loved to be on the water, and that's why he wrote this title, and that's the title of the song: it's Sea Sea Rider".[32]
• Big Bill Broonzy also states, in a conversation about his youth with Bill Randle on his album The Bill Broonzy Story (recorded on July 12, 1957), that See See Rider was a blues singer (AVID Roots, Classic Box Set, AMSC1159) before playing the tune.

• "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone"
• R&B number-one hits of 1943 (USA)