"Ain't Nobody's Business" (originally "Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness if I Do") is a 1920s

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 that became one of the first

blues standards 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 ...

. It was published in 1922 by

Porter Grainger Porter Grainger ( Granger; October 22, 1891 − October 30, 1948) was an American pianist, songwriter, playwright, and music publisher. Biography When Grainger was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the Granger family name did not include an "i". A ...

and

Everett Robbins Everett "Happy" Robbins was a Chicago-based pianist,Fran ...

. The song features a lyrical theme of

freedom of choice Freedom of choice describes an individual's opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties. In politics In the abortion debate, for example, the term "freedom of ch ...

and a

vaudeville jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African Americans, 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 recog ...

–style musical arrangement. It was first recorded, as "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness if I Do", in 1922 by Anna Meyers, backed by the

Original Memphis Five The Original Memphis Five was an early jazz quintet founded in 1917 by trumpeter Phil Napoleon and pianist Frank Signorelli. Jimmy Lytell was a member from 1922 to 1925. The group made many recordings between 1921 and 1931, sometimes under diffe ...

. Recordings by other

classic female blues Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female singers accompanied by ...

singers, including

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, ...

Alberta Hunter Alberta Hunter (April 1, 1895 – October 17, 1984) was an American jazz and blues singer and songwriter from the early 1920s to the late 1950s. After twenty years of working as a nurse, Hunter resumed her singing career in 1977. Early life Hu ...

, and

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...

soon followed. In 1947, the song was revived by the

jump blues Jump blues is an up-tempo style of blues, usually played by small groups and featuring horn instruments. It was popular in the 1940s and was a precursor of rhythm and blues and rock and roll. Appreciation of jump blues was renewed in the 1990s as ...

singer

Jimmy Witherspoon James Witherspoon (August 8, 1920 – September 18, 1997) was an American jump blues singer. Early life, family and education Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. His father was a railroad worker who sang in local choirs, and his mot ...

as "Ain't Nobody's Business". It was the best-selling

race record Race records were 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to African Americans between the 1920s and 1940s.Oliver, Paul. "Race record." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 13 Feb. 2015. They primarily contained race music, comprising various Afri ...

of 1949 and inspired numerous adaptations of the song. In 2011, Witherspoon's rendition was inducted into the

Blues Foundation The Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 blues organizations from various parts of the world. Founded in 1980, a 25-person board of directors governs the ...

Hall of Fame as a "Classic of Blues Recording".

Composition and lyrics

The early versions of "Ain't Nobody's Business" feature vocals with piano and sometimes horn accompaniment. They are performed as moderate-tempo blues and have an extended sixteen-bar introduction: The remaining verses are eight bars in length, with the first four describing a situation, such as "If I go to church on Sunday, then cabaret on Monday", and the last four concluding with the refrain "Tain't nobody's biz-ness if I do". The song's eight-bar chord scheme was a model for subsequent "bluesy" Tin Pan Alley songs and R&B ballads in an

AABA form The 32-bar form, also known as the AABA song form, American popular song form and the ballad form, is a song structure commonly found in Tin Pan Alley songs and other American popular music, especially in the first half of the 20th century. A ...

. The music and lyrics are usually credited to two pianists – Porter Grainger, who had been

's accompanist from 1924 to 1928, and Everett Robbins, who had his own bands and worked briefly with

Mamie Smith Mamie Smith (née Robinson; May 26, 1891 – September 16, 1946) was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist, and actress. As a vaudeville singer she performed in multiple styles, including jazz and blues. In 1920, she entered blues histor ...

. Clarence Williams, who played the piano on Bessie Smith's recording, is sometimes listed as a co-author of the song. BMI, the performing rights organization, lists Grainger, Williams, Witherspoon, and Graham Prince. The original lyrics were copyrighted in 1922 and are now in the public domain.

Recordings and releases

Anna Meyers recorded "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness if I Do" on October 19, 1922, in New York City, backed by the

. The song was released as a ten-inch 78-R.P.M. single on Pathé Actuelle for the US market by the French-based

Pathé Records Pathé Records was an international record company and label and producer of phonographs, based in France, and active from the 1890s through the 1930s. Early years The Pathé record business was founded by brothers Charles and Émile Pathé, ...

. Other early recordings include those by Billie Holiday,

(with

Fats Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz pi ...

on piano),

, and

. The lyrics mention an abusive partner: In 1928, a

country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...

rendition was recorded by Memphis, Tennessee, singer-guitarist Frank Stokes. His finger-style acoustic guitar version uses a simple I-IV-V chord progression and different lyrics, including the refrain "It ain't nobody's business but mine". In the post–World War II blues era, the jump blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon revived the song as "Ain't Nobody's Business". He performed it in the

West Coast blues West Coast blues is a type of blues music influenced by jazz and jump blues, with strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players who relocated to California in the 1940s. West Coast blues also ...

style with understated backing by piano, guitar, bass, drums, and a three-piece horn section. The song was recorded in Los Angeles on November 15, 1947, and released by Supreme Records in September 1948. It entered the record chart on March 5, 1949, and reached number one. Witherspoon's song was the best-selling R&B record of 1949.

Recognition and influence

In 2011, Witherspoon's "Ain't Nobody's Business" was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. According to the Foundation, "its message continued to resonate, as borne out by the remarkable success of Witherspoon's two-part rendition, which remained on the Billboard 'race records' charts for 34 weeks. It was rated No. 3 in all-time chart longevity in

Joel Whitburn Joel Carver Whitburn (November 29, 1939 – June 14, 2022) was an American author and music historian, responsible for setting up the Record Research, Inc. series of books on record chart placings. Early life Joel Carver Whitburn was born in Wau ...

's ''Top R&B Singles 1942–1988''." Witherspoon's rendition also inspired numerous artists to record adaptations of the song.

Hank Williams Jr. Randall Hank Williams (born May 26, 1949), known professionally as Hank Williams Jr. or Bocephus, is an American singer-songwriter and musician. His musical style is often considered a blend of southern rock, blues, and country. He is the son of ...

recorded a version for his ''Lone Wolf'' album. Released as a single in 1990, it peaked at number 15 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot Country Singles & Tracks Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart. In 1996, a version by H₂O featuring Billie reached number 19 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

References

External links

*Song lyrics at Wikisource:Ain't Nobody's Business {{authority control 1922 songs 1949 singles 1990 singles Billie Holiday songs Dinah Washington songs Freddie King songs Bessie Smith songs Hank Williams Jr. songs Blues songs Warner Records singles Curb Records singles Okeh Records singles