"Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" (also "Make Me a Pallet on your Floor", "Make Me a Pallet", or "Pallet on the Floor") 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 ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

song. It is considered a

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

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 ...

explained the title: "A pallet is something that – you get some quilts – in other words, it's a bed that's made on a floor without any four posters on 'em."

Structure

The melody is 16 bars long. One writer describes the structure as "a proto-blues ..thathas little in common musically with regular blues". When played in the key of C, the typical structure is:

History

The composition probably originates from the end of the nineteenth century. One jazz historian states that the song "could have been sung around New Orleans in the mid-1890s." A 1906 report in the ''

Indianapolis Freeman The ''Indianapolis Freeman'' (1884–1926) was the first illustrated black newspaper in the United States. Founder and owner Louis Howland, who was soon replaced by Edward Elder Cooper, published its first print edition on November 20, 1884. H ...

'' referred to a performance of the song by "The Texas Teaser, Bennie Jones". It appeared in sheet music in 1908 as part of "

Blind Boone John William "Blind" Boone (May 17, 1864 – October 4, 1927) was an American pianist and composer of ragtime music. Early life Boone was born in a Federal militia camp near Miami, Missouri, May 17, 1864, to a contraband slave, Rachel, who used ...

's Southern Rag Medley No. One: Strains from the Alleys." "The lyrics first appear in a 1911 article by folklorist Howard Odum, who had transcribed them from a performance he had heard in Mississippi a few years before." Some sources attribute the modern score to

W. C. Handy William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was an American composer and musician who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musici ...

, who later modified it into a song known as "Atlanta Blues". He published "Atlanta Blues" in 1923, featuring lyrics credited to

Dave Elman Dave Elman (May 6, 1900 – December 5, 1967) was a noted American radio host, comedian, and songwriter, and important figure in the field of hypnosis. He is most known today as the author of ''Findings in Hypnosis'' (1964). Over the course of his ...

. The first recording of the melody appears in Handy's band's 1917 performance of "Sweet Child", which was written by Stovall and Ewing. Early recordings of the song were made by numerous musicians, including

Virginia Liston Virginia Liston (''née'' Crawford; c. 1890 – June 1932) was an American classic female blues and jazz singer. She spent most of her career in vaudeville. She performed with her husband, Samuel H. Gray, as Liston and Liston. In the 1920s s ...

("Make Me a Pallet",

OKeh Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

8247, 1925),

Ethel Waters Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her not ...

, ("Make Me a Pallet on the Floor", Columbia 14125-D, 1926),

Mississippi John Hurt John Smith Hurt (March 8, 1893 – November 2, 1966), better known as Mississippi John Hurt, was an American country blues singer and guitarist. Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself to play the guitar around the age of nine. He wo ...

("Ain't No Tellin'", OKeh 8759, 1928); and

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

duo the

Stripling Brothers The Stripling Brothers were an American old-time country music duo, comprising fiddler Charlie Melvin Stripling (August 8, 1896–January 19, 1966) and his guitar-playing brother Ira Lee Stripling (June 5, 1898–March 11, 1967). They rec ...

("Pallet on the Floor",

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in We ...

5367, 1936). Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle, ''The Traditional Ballad Index, Version 5.2'', 27 July 2020
Retrieved 29 August 2020

Delta blues Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the s ...

guitarist and singer

Sam Chatmon Sam Chatmon (born Vivian Chatmon; January 10, 1897 – February 2, 1983) was a Delta blues guitarist and singer. He was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks. He may have been Charley Patton's half-brother. Life and career Chatmon was born in B ...

accounts, during a live session captured 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 ...

, "When I first started picking guitar it was about the first or the second

ong Ong or ONG may refer to: Arts and media * Ong's Hat, a collaborative work of fiction * “Ong Ong”, a song by Blur from the album The Magic Whip Places * Ong, Nebraska, US, city * Ong's Hat, New Jersey, US, ghost town * Ong River, Odisha, India ...

I learned ... was about 4 years old". Making it the year 1900 when Sam learned the song in

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

, Mississippi.

References

{{Authority control American folk songs Blues songs Songs with music by W. C. Handy