Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, Versions on November 29, 2007 | No Comments »
A recent item about Tom Jones going on tour next year mentions in passing his 2004 album with Jools Hollland: “The set finds the Welsh pop idol and the former Squeeze keyboardist … tackling a hodgepodge of classic and not-so-classic material, including ‘St James’ Infirmary Blues’ ….”
A long time ago — in August of 2005, [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Non-musical context, Versions on July 12, 2007 | No Comments »
The other day I mentioned The White Stripes including “St. James Infirmary” in a live set. The famous Detroit duo also of course have recorded the song, on their first album. I’ve never written about that version here, but now’s as good a time as any. The occasion is the appearance on YouTube of what [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, Versions on April 30, 2007 | 4 Comments »
The previous post about “fixing up” a traditional tune is a good lead-in to addressing one of the versinos of “SJI” that I bought using my Linkshare loot. It’s a a slow, spare, and fairly haunting arrangement, by Little Pink Anderson; it lasts more than seven minutes, and I like it a lot.
Little Pink Anderson [...]
Posted in Lyric deconstruction, Musical context, New Orleans, The Rolling Jelly Series on July 31, 2006 | Comments Off
[ Here is Part 4 of the Rolling Jelly Series.]
In an earlier post I touched on some of the sartorial matters relating to “St. James Infirmary.” And at various points in his conversations with Alan Lomax, Jelly Roll Morton had a thing or two to say on the subject of style. It’s clear Morton had [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction on July 6, 2006 | Comments Off
Following my post the other day about “Let her go” popping up in “Ascension Day” (on the Costello/Toussaint album The River In Reverse), an interesting note arrived from Paul Stamler.
He says that the line “Let her go, let her go” is “not native to the song ‘St. James Infirmary.’ Rather, it is a graft, from [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, Musical context, New Orleans on June 30, 2006 | Comments Off
A while back, in a post I can’t seem to find now, I sang the praises of Allen Toussaint’s “Tipitina and Me,” which appeared on the Our New Orleans fundraiser CD. I was interested to learn that one of the songs on the much-anticipated Toussaint/Elvis Costello collaboration CD, The River In Reverse (recorded in New [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, Non-musical context on April 25, 2006 | Comments Off
Lately I’ve been working my way, rather slowly, through Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax. I’ll have more to say about that later, but there was a bit on Disc Four that caught my attention, and reminded me of another exchange I had with a reader some time [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, Non-musical context, St. James Infirmary (the building) on March 16, 2006 | Comments Off
So, where was the St. James Infirmary? The St. James Infirmary, I mean. This is a question many fans of the song have speculated about, in one way or another.
I touched on this very briefly in the most recent version of the “St. James Infirmary” essay. There was, it is said, a St. James Methodist [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, Versions on February 22, 2006 | Comments Off
While this site is fairly new, it’s actuallly been a couple of years since I first wrote about “St. James Infirmary,” posted that writing on the Web, and asked for feedback. Among those who have sent helpful replies in that time, there have been a number of musicians. I’ve noted a few of these already, [...]
[Or: The Point of this Site]
A couple of years ago I did some research into the song "St. James Infirmary," wrote up what I found, emailed that essay to friends and posted it on my web site (as part of a series of "Letters From New Orleans," as I was living in that city at the time). Based on the feedback, I wrote a second version of the essay, and asked for more feedback. Based on that, I wrote a third version.
And now, this site: A place to collect some of the links, leads, thoughts, and suggestions relating to the song that readers (from Finland, The Netherlands, Australia, Spain, England, Sweden, Canada, and all over the U.S.) have sent me. This may lead to a fourth and significantly expanded version of the essay, some day. Also on this site: Plenty of tangents.
Never heard "St. James Infirmary"? Start here.
The most recent version of my "St. James Infirmary" essay is now a few years old. But it's still a fairly decent overview of what I know about the song, and why I'm interested in it. You can read it either in the book Letters from New Orleans (see below), or in the archives of The Gambit, the New Orleans weekly that published the piece as a book excerpt when LfNO came out.
This site is a partial spinoff of the book Letters from New Orleans, published by the unstoppable Garrett County Press. My interest in "St. James Infirmary" is the subject of one essay in the book. All author proceeds from the book still go to post-Katrina relief efforts, so I think it's okay for me to say: You ought to buy it.
