История одной блюзовой песни: «Hesitation Blues»

the song

"Hesitation Blues" is a popular song adapted from a traditional tune. One version was published by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham. 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 standard and is also played as blues and sometimes as Western swing. It is cataloged as Roud Folk Song Index No. 11765. Composer William Grant Still arranged a version of the song in 1916 while working with Handy.

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, James Reese Europe's 369th U. S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Marching Band, Esther Bigeou, Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne, and Louis Armstrong. W. C. Handy, in his Blues Anthology stated the tune was from an old spiritual.

At the beginning of his poem sequence Ask Your Mama, Langston Hughes 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 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.

Blues musician Sammy Price remembered hearing a version of "Hesitation Blues" played by an itinerant guitarist that referenced the Lynching of Jesse Washington. Price lived in Waco as a child, possibly at the time of Washington's horrific death.

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 performed a variant of the song called "Nancy Rowland" in 1923. Robert Winslow Gordon recorded Bascom Lamar Lunsford and a man named John G. Woody singing Hesitation Blues in the 1920s in North Carolina. The recording of Lunsford can be heard online. John Lomax recorded Leadbelly singing a version of the song in 1935 and Smith Casey in 1939; Casey's recording is available on the Library of Congress website. Cas Wallin, one of the Wallin family of North Carolina ballad singers, was filmed in 1982 by Alan Lomax (John Lomax's son) singing a version of the song which differs significantly from the popular versions.