Songs for Your Bluesday: “St. James Infirmary Blues”
March 9, 2010 by Joe Kloc
121 RECORDINGS OF THE “ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES” or WHAT A 500-YEAR-OLD HOSPITAL FOR LEPERS AND LOUIS ARMSTRONG HAVE IN COMMON
I recently came across an archive of “St. James Infirmary Blues” recordings that should make for some good Bluesday listening. It’s got everything from Cab Calloway to Josh White to Dave Van Ronk to The White Stripes. But before you dig into the over 100 recordings in the archive, it might be worth knowing a bit about the long history of this American standard.
It gets its name—and much of its context—from the St. James Hospital, a foundation in London for lepers living “chastely and honestly in divine service.” In 1532 the St. James Hospital was closed when Henry VIII purchased the grounds to build his St. James Palace. Jonathan Swift described the palace in a letter to his friend Esther Johnson: ”Houses of amusements abounded…bibbing and drinking under the trees: two or three quarrels every week. It was grown scandalous and insufferable.” In fact, another “contemporary’s” description of St. James Palace, found in the liner notes of the 1960 Folkways record The Unfortunate Rake seems to sum up the mood of the “St. James Infirmary Blues” nicely:
[T]he palace “looked more like a prison than a royal mansion.” [It] evoked in one observer a mood which paralleled the spirit of the times, one of “terrible drama…some deeply tragic…some gay…with a transient light like that which at times gilds for a moment the fierce black waves breaking over a stranded ship.”
The song’s music evolved from the 18th century English folk song, “The Unfortunate Rake,” which tells the story of a sailor who dies of a venereal disease after a lifetime enjoying the company of prostitutes. “The Unfortunate Rake” also seems to be the grandfather of the cowboy classic “Streets of Laredo.” (There is a lot more to the influence of “The Unfortunate Rake” on folk music in general. If you are interested, it can be found here.)
Despite this decidedly European history, though, in the 20th century the “St. James Infirmary Blues” evolved into a distinctly American song. A popular version of the lyrics speaks for itself in this respect: “Oh, when I die, bury me / In my high top Stetson hat; /Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain / So the boys’ll know I died standin’ pat.”
***
In case you don’t have the time to listen to all 121 versions of the song contained in the archive, I’ve selected a few of my favorites:
- “St. James Infirmary” by Blind John Davis
- “St. James Infirmary” by Louis Armstrong
- “Gambler’s Blues” by Dave Van Ronk
- “St. James Infirmary” by the Harlem Hot Chocolates
link
