"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 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 ...

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. Mus ...

and

Scrapper Blackwell Francis Hillman "Scrapper" Blackwell (February 21, 1903 – October 7, 1962) was an American blues guitarist and singer, best known as half of the guitar-piano duo he formed with Leroy Carr in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was an acoustic si ...

in 1928. It became an early

blues standard Blues standards are blues songs that have attained a high level of recognition due to having been widely performed and recorded. They represent the best known and most interpreted blues songs that are seen as standing the test of time. Blues s ...

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 Ida Cox (born Ida M. Prather, February 26, 1888 or 1896 – November 10, 1967) was an American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as "The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues".Harriso ...

with

Papa Charlie Jackson Papa Charlie Jackson (November 10, 1887 – May 7, 1938) was an early 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 life remains a mystery, ...

. 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 company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

, 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 Scrapwell'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 The Mississippi Sheiks were a popular and influential American guitar and fiddle group of the 1930s. They were notable mostly for playing country blues but were adept at many styles of popular music of the time. They recorded around 70 tracks, ...

' "

Sitting on Top of the World "Sitting on Top of the World" (also "Sittin' on Top of the World") is a country blues song written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon. They were core members of the Mississippi Sheiks, who first recorded it in 1930. Vinson claimed to have com ...

" and

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

's "

Come On in My Kitchen "Come On in My Kitchen" is a blues song by Robert Johnson. Music writer Elijah Wald has described it as "a hypnotic lament" and "his first unquestionable masterpiece". A sometime traveling companion and fellow musician, Johnny Shines, recalled th ...

". Although his later style would not suggest it,

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...

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 located 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 blues music. Started in 1 ...

in the category "Classics of Blues Recordings – Singles or Album Tracks". Blues historian

Jim O'Neal Jim O'Neal (born November 25, 1948, Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States) is an American blues expert, writer, record producer, and record company executive. He co-founded America's first blues magazine, ''Living Blues'', in Chicago in 1970, and w ...

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 The Grammy Hall of Fame is a hall of fame to honor musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Inductees are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of ...

, which "honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance".

References

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

Original song

Legacy

See also

References