I listened to this Robert Johnson song the other day and was struck by the line "I have got a bird to whistle?" Where had I heard that before? Of course, Corrina, which I first heard sang by Taj Mahal. Funny how these phrases and snippets get passed down over time. Not sure if Johnson was the first even...
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A song with various traditional roots it was first recorded as “Corrine, Corrina” by Bo Carter in 1928, then by the Mississippi Sheiks in 1930, and then significantly by Roy Newman and His Boys in 1935, on what is the first use of an electrically amplified guitar found on a recording. By the 1940s it had become a Blues standard and thanks to Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys it became a Western Swing and Cajun standard as well.
It was Dylan who renamed it “Corrina, Corrina” and readapted it as an acoustic folk number by lifting the melody and some of the lyrics from a 1927 Robert Johnson song called “Stones in My Passway” and variations on this version have since been released by Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis and Eric Clapton….And now it’s time for another cup of coffee.
Thanks Kerry, so Johnson may have come up with the whistlin' bird...
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