"How Long, How Long Blues" (also known as "How Long Blues" or "How Long How Long") is a

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

song recorded by the American blues duo

Leroy Carr Leroy Carr (March 27, 1904 or 1905 – April 29, 1935) was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Mu ...

and Scrapper Blackwell in 1928. It became an early blues standard and its melody inspired many later songs.

Original song

"How Long, How Long Blues" is based on "How Long Daddy", recorded in 1925 by Ida Cox with

Papa Charlie Jackson William Henry "Papa Charlie" Jackson (November 10, 1887 – May 7, 1938) was an early African American bluesman and songster who accompanied himself with a banjo guitar, a guitar, or a ukulele. His recording career began in 1924. Much of his l ...

. On June 19, 1928, Leroy Carr, who sang and played piano, and guitarist Scrapper Blackwell recorded the song in Indianapolis, Indiana, for

Vocalion Records Vocalion Records is an American record label, originally founded by the Aeolian Company, a piano and organ manufacturer before being bought out by Brunswick in 1924. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pi ...

, shortly after they began performing together. It is a moderately slow-tempo blues with an eight-bar structure. Carr is credited with the lyrics and music for the song, which uses a departed train as a metaphor for a lover who has left: Carr's and Blackwell's songs reflected a more urban and sophisticated blues, in contrast to the music of rural bluesmen of the time. Carr's blues were "expressive and evocative", although his vocals have also been described as emotionally detached, high-pitched and smooth, with clear diction. "How Long, How Long Blues" was Carr and Blackwell's biggest hit. They subsequently recorded six more versions of the song (two of them, unissued at the time), as "How Long, How Long Blues, Part 2", "Part 3", "How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone", "The New How Long, How Long Blues", etc. There are considerable variations in the lyrics, but most versions begin with the lyric "How long, how long, has that evening train been gone?"

Legacy

"How Long, How Long Blues" became an early blues standard and "its lilting melody inspired hundreds of later compositions", including the Mississippi Sheiks' " Sitting on Top of the World" and

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His singing, guitar playing and songwriting on his landmark 1936 and 1937 recordings have influenced later generations of musicians. Although his r ...

's " Come On in My Kitchen". Although his later style would not suggest it,

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...

recalled that it was the first song he learned to play "off the Leroy Carr record". In 1988, Carr's "How Long, How Long Blues" was inducted into the

Blues Hall of Fame The Blues Hall of Fame is a music museum operated by the Blues Foundation at 421 S. Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Initially, the "Blues Hall of Fame" was not a physical building, but a listing of people who have significantly contributed to b ...

in the category "Classics of Blues Recordings – Singles or Album Tracks". Blues historian Jim O'Neal commented in the induction statement, "'How Long, How Long Blues' was a massive hit in the prewar blues era, a song that every blues singer and piano player had to know, and one that has continued to inspire dozens of cover versions." In 2012, the song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, which "honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance".

References

{{authority control 1928 songs 1928 singles Blues songs Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients Vocalion Records singles Songs about trains

Original song

Legacy

See also

References