"Hesitation Blues" is a popular song adapted from a traditional tune. One version was published by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and

Art Gillham Art Gillham (January 1, 1895, St. Louis, Missouri – June 6, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia) was an American songwriter, who was among the first crooners as a pioneer radio artist and a recording artist for Columbia Records. With Billy Smythe and Scott ...

. Another was published by W.C. Handy as "Hesitating Blues". Because the tune is traditional, many artists have taken credit as writer, frequently adapting the lyrics of one of the two published versions. Adaptations of the lyrics vary widely, though typically the refrain is recognizably consistent. The song is a

jug band A jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of conventional and homemade instruments. These homemade instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, bones, stovepi ...

standard and is also played as

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and sometimes as Western swing. It is cataloged as Roud Folk Song Index No. 11765. Composer

William Grant Still William Grant Still Jr. (May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978) was an American composer of nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, over thirty choral works, plus art songs, chamber music and works fo ...

arranged a version of the song in 1916 while working with Handy.

Smythe, Middleton and Gillham version

The three men were involved in the music publishing business in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

. About 1914 they joined a band and went to Los Angeles. They passed their traveling time making up verses to a traditional tune. When they returned to St. Louis the trio went their separate ways.

remained in St. Louis, Billy Smythe went to Louisville, Smythe's brother-in-law Scott Middleton went to Chicago. In 1915 Billy Smythe published their musings as "Hesitation Blues" but not crediting Gillham. A dispute over the credits was resolved a few years later when Gillham and Smythe began writing other songs as a team with the sheet music stating "by the writers of Hesitation Blues". One of the first popular recordings of this song was an instrumental version by the Victor Military Band, with authorship attributed solely to Smythe. It was made on September 15, 1916 at the Victor Talking Machine Company in a Camden, New Jersey factory. This recording stayed in the Victor's catalog as the A-side of Record Number 18163 until January 1923; in February 2009, a video presenting the audio of that recording was added to YouTube. The song was also recorded for Edison Records in 1919 by

Al Bernard Alfred Aloysous Bernard (November 23, 1888 – March 6, 1949) was an American vaudeville singer, known as "The Boy From Dixie", who was most popular during the 1910s through early 1930s. Life Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he became a blackface ...

and exists as a Blue Amberol cylinder recording and as an Edison Diamond Disc matrix recording. Audio files of this recording are preserved at the Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project of the University of California Santa Barbara.

performed the song on radio and on February 25, 1925 recorded it for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

as one of the first electrical recordings (Master 140390, released as Columbia 343-D). The recording has 9 verses and a refrain, including: The song was republished in 1926 giving credit to the three writers. The 1926 publication was a different arrangement with different lyrics added to the 1915 publication. On February 22, 1935, The San Antonio Light's page 1 column, Around The Plaza told the story of Smythe-Middleton-Gillham's Hesitation Blues. On February 6, 1941 the paper also had an article on page 1 "Getting In Swing Of Hit Tunes" about the writing of Hesitation Blues. The 1964 version by the

Holy Modal Rounders The Holy Modal Rounders was an American folk music group, originally the duo of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, who began performing together on the Lower East Side of New York City in the early 1960s. Their unique blend of folk music reviva ...

featured the first use of the term " psychedelic" in popular music in the verse "Got my psycho-delic feet, in my psycho-delic shoes, I believe lordy mama got the psycho-delic blues, tell me how long do I have to wait, or can I get you now, or must I hesitay-ay-ay-ate". The original sleeve notes (as reproduced in the CD notes) state "A Charlie Poole hit. Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers recorded an incredible number of songs that are personal favorites of mine."

W.C. Handy version

The same traditional tune was also arranged by W.C. Handy and published in 1915 as "Hesitating Blues". Handy's version shares the melody, but the lyrics are different. His chorus is a variation on the "how long" lyrics in the Smythe, Middleton and Gillham version. The verse, however, is substantially different, telling a story of separated lovers unable to reach each other by phone. There are many recorded versions of the Handy song, including ones by

Prince's Band Charles Adams Prince (1869 – October 10, 1937) was an American conductor, bandleader, pianist and organist known for conducting the Columbia Orchestra and, later, Prince's Band and Orchestra.''Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound'', p. 860. He ...

James Reese Europe James Reese Europe (February 22, 1881 – May 9, 1919) was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the African Americans music scene of New York City in the 1910s. Eubie Blake called hi ...

's 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Marching Band,

Esther Bigeou Esther Bigeou (1892 – November 15, 1936) was an American vaudeville and blues singer. Billed as "The Girl with the Million Dollar Smile", she was one of the classic female blues singers popular in the 1920s. Biography She was born in New Orlea ...

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...

Lena Horne Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of th ...

, and

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

. W. C. Handy, in his ''Blues Anthology'' stated the tune was from an old spiritual.

Use by Langston Hughes in the poem ''Ask Your Mama''

At the beginning of his poem sequence '' Ask Your Mama'',

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

says: "The traditional folk melody of the 'Hesitation Blues' is the leitmotif for this poem." Throughout the poem, Hughes placed musical direction for the poem on the right margin of each page. The direction calls for performance of song several times in the poem sequence. In his biography of Hughes,

Arnold Rampersad Arnold Rampersad (born 13 November 1941) is a biographer, literary critic, and academic, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to the US in 1965. The first volume (1986) of his ''Life of Langston Hughes'' was a finalist for the Pulitzer ...

says the song's chorus, which asks, "How long must I have to wait?" emphasizes Hughes's impatience with the progress of the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

Sammy Price's version

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

musician

Sammy Price Samuel Blythe Price (October 6, 1908 – April 14, 1992) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. Price's playing is dark, mellow, and relaxed rather than percussive, and he was a specialist at creating the ...

remembered hearing a version of "Hesitation Blues" played by an itinerant guitarist that referenced the

Lynching of Jesse Washington Jesse Washington was a seventeen-year-old African American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of racist lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering L ...

. Price lived in Waco as a child, possibly at the time of Washington's horrific death.

Versions recorded by folk song collectors

Several versions of the song, which is categorized as number 11765 in the Roud Folk Song Index, were collected from traditional singers by folk song collectors.

Fiddlin' John Carson "Fiddlin'" John Carson (March 23, 1868 – December 11, 1949) was an American old-time fiddler and singer who recorded what is widely considered to be the first country music song featuring vocals and lyrics. Early life Carson was born near M ...

performed a variant of the song called "Nancy Rowland" in 1923.

Robert Winslow Gordon Robert Winslow Gordon (September 2, 1888 – March 26, 1961) was an American academic, known as a collector of folk songs. Gordon was educated at Harvard University. He joined the English faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in 19 ...

recorded

Bascom Lamar Lunsford Bascom Lamar Lunsford (March 21, 1882 – September 4, 1973) was a Folklore studies, folklorist, performer of Appalachian music, traditional Appalachian music, and lawyer from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname "Minstrel ...

and a man named John G. Woody singing Hesitation Blues in the 1920s in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. The recording of Lunsford can be heard online.

John Lomax John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess Lo ...

recorded

Leadbelly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...

singing a version of the song in 1935 and Smith Casey in 1939; Casey's recording is available on the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

website. Cas Wallin, one of the Wallin family of North Carolina ballad singers, was filmed in 1982 by

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

(John Lomax's son) singing a version of the song which differs significantly from the popular versions.

Renditions by other artists

Artists who have recorded the song include: *

( W.C.Handy version) *

Asylum Street Spankers Asylum Street Spankers was an American acoustic blues and roots rock band from Austin, Texas, United States. The band played cover versions of early jazz and comical, often risqué original songs. In 2006, the band's satirical antiwar video "Stic ...

* Barney Bigard *

Milton Brown Milton Brown (September 8, 1903 – April 18, 1936) was an American band leader and vocalist who co-founded the genre of Western swing. His band was the first to fuse hillbilly hokum, jazz, and pop together into a unique, distinctly American hy ...

* Sam Collins *

Reverend Gary Davis Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis (born Gary D. Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infancy ...

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...

The Flatlanders The Flatlanders are an American country music, country band from Lubbock, Texas, United States, founded in 1972 by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. The group garnered little success during their brief original incarnation from 1972 ...

Jerry Garcia Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence ...

and

David Grisman David Grisman (born March 23, 1945) is an American mandolinist. His music combines bluegrass, folk, and jazz in a genre he calls "Dawg music". He founded the record label Acoustic Disc, which issues his recordings and those of other acoustic mu ...

(The Whispering Pianist) *

Nat Gonella Nathaniel Charles Gonella (7 March 1908 – 6 August 1998) was an English jazz trumpeter, bandleader, vocalist, and mellophonist. He founded the big band The Georgians, during the British dance band era. Early life and career Gonella was bo ...

* W.C. Handy *

Earl Hines Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl "Fatha" Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, " ...

Hot Tuna Hot Tuna is an American blues rock band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen (guitarist/vocals) and Jack Casady (bassist). Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the ...

Jorma Kaukonen Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. (; ; born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bass ...

* Jim Jackson *

James P. Johnson James Price Johnson (February 1, 1894 – November 17, 1955) was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key ...

* Janis Joplin *

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a regular symmetrical pattern when v ...

Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...

* David Lindley *

Little Brother Montgomery Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery (April 18, 1906 – September 6, 1985) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communi ...

Wingy Manone Joseph Matthews "Wingy" Manone (February 13, 1900 – July 9, 1982) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, singer, and bandleader. His recordings included " Tar Paper Stomp", "Nickel in the Slot", "Downright Disgusted Blues", "There'll Come a ...

Sara Martin Sara Martin (June 18, 1884 – May 24, 1955) was an American blues singer, in her time one of the most popular of the classic blues singers. She was billed as "The Famous Moanin' Mama" and "The Colored Sophie Tucker". She made many recordings, ...

Ralph McTell Ralph McTell (born Ralph May, 3 December 1944) is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s. McTell is best known for his song " Streets of London" (19 ...

Dan Melchior Dan Melchior is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, often labeled a garage rock musician. He has formed the named groups of musicians Broke Revue and Dan Melchior und Das Menace. Background Melchior grew up in Shepperton, Surrey, just o ...

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a gen ...

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album ''Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of ''Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (197 ...

with Asleep at the Wheel *

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is an American country rock band formed in 1966. The group has existed in various forms since its founding in Long Beach, California. Between 1976 and 1981, the band performed and recorded as the Dirt Band. Constant ...

Old Crow Medicine Show Old Crow Medicine Show is an Americana string band based in Nashville, Tennessee, that has been recording since 1998. They were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on September 17, 2013. Their ninth album, '' Remedy'', released in 2014, won the ...

Charlie Poole Charles Cleveland Poole (March 22, 1892 – May 21, 1931) was an American musician, singer and banjo player, as well as the leader of the North Carolina Ramblers, which was a string band that recorded many popular songs between 1925 and 1930. ...

("If the River Was Whiskey") * The Radiators *

Patrick Sky Patrick Sky (born Patrick Linch; October 2, 1940May 26, 2021) was an American musician, folk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was noted for his album ''Songs That Made America Famous'' (1973). He was of Irish and Native American anc ...

* Terry St.Clair *

Steely Dan Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Initially the band had a stable lineup, but in 1974, Becker and Fagen retired from live ...

with

Marian McPartland Margaret Marian McPartland OBE ( Turner;Hasson, Claire"Marian McPartland: Jazz Pianist: An Overview of a Career" PhD Thesis. Retrieved 12 August 2008. 20 March 1918 – 20 August 2013), was an English–American jazz pianist, composer, and wri ...

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

Eva Taylor Eva Taylor (January 22, 1895 — October 31, 1977) was an American blues singer and stage actress. Life and career Born Irene Joy Gibbons in St. Louis, Missouri, as one of twelve children. On stage from the age of three, Taylor toured New ...

Dave Van Ronk David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Ma ...

* Doc and Merle Watson * Clarence Williams *

Jesse Colin Young Perry Miller (born November 22, 1941), known professionally as Jesse Colin Young, is an American singer and songwriter. He was a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s group the Youngbloods. After their dissolution in 1972, Young embarked ...

(titled "Miss Hesitation") *

Justin Townes Earle Justin Townes Earle (January 4, 1982August 20, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. After his debut, EP ''Yuma'' (2007), he released eight full-length albums. He was recognized with an Americana Music Award for Emerging Artist o ...

The song was sung twice by the character Putty Nose (played by

Murray Kinnell Murray Kinnell (24 July 1889 – 11 August 1954) was a British-born American actor, recognized for playing smooth, gentlemanly, although rather shady characters. He appeared in 71 films in the USA between the pre-code era of 1930 and 1937. He wa ...

) in the 1931

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

film ''

The Public Enemy ''The Public Enemy'' (''Enemies of the Public'' in the UK) is a 1931 American all-talking pre-Code gangster film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was directed by William A. Wellman and stars James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward ...

''.

References

External links

* {{authority control 1915 songs American songs Blues songs