I Ain't Got Nobody

This article is about the Spencer Williams song commonly combined with "Just a Gigolo". For the Sly and the Family Stone song "I Ain't Got Nobody (For Real)", see Dance to the Music (Sly and the Family Stone album) § Track listing.
"I Ain't Got Nobody"
Sheet music cover
Song
Published1915
GenreJazz
ComposerSpencer Williams
LyricistRoger A. Graham
Audio
Recording of I Ain't Got Nobody, performed by Marion Harris (1921)
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"I Ain't Got Nobody" (sometimes referred to as "I'm So Sad and Lonely" or "I Ain't Got Nobody Much") is a popular song and copyrighted in 1915. It was first recorded by Marion Harris, and became a perennial standard, recorded many times over the following generations, in styles ranging from pop to jazz to country music.

Composition

"I Ain't Got Nobody" is a ii-V-I composed in F major, that features a chromatic walkdown to the ii chord from the tonic in the A section, and then a typical resolution to the V (Dominant) chord. The B section is bluesy.

Attribution

There are competing claims to the copyright, and thus who composed it is not clearly known. [1]

Two copyrights from 1911 are attributed to Clarence Brandon and Billy Smythe,[2] both St. Louis musicians.[3] If true, this would be the first version of the words and music to "I Ain't Got Nobody".[4] They claimed they published it that same year.[2]

Chicago and Saint Louis ragtime pianist and blues composer Charles Warfield (1878–1955) claimed to have originally written the song[1] and a copyright dated April 1914 attributes Warfield as the composer,[5] David Young as the lyricist, and Marie Lucas as the arranger.[6] This song is titled "I Ain't Got Nobody and Nobody Cares for Me".

A copyright entry from 1916 under a shorter title attributes the composition to Davy Peyton and Spencer Williams, and the lyrics to publisher Roger Graham.[3][2] Also in 1916, Frank K. Root & Co., a Chicago publisher, acquired the Craig & Co. copyright, and later that year also acquired the Warfield-Young copyright.[5][4]

"Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody" medley

"I Ain't Got Nobody" is best known in a form first recorded by Louis Prima in 1956,[7] where it was paired in a medley with another old standard, "Just a Gigolo". Prima started pairing the songs in 1945 and the idea was revisited in the popular arrangement in a new, jive-and-jumping style, created by Sam Butera for Prima's 1950s Las Vegas stage show. The success of that act gained Prima a recording deal with Capitol Records, which aimed to capture on record the atmosphere of his shows. The first album, titled The Wildest! and released in November 1956, opened with "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody", which then became Prima's signature number and helped relaunch his career.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Baby Won't You Please Come Home, editor-in-chief: Sandra Burlingame, Portland, Oregon: jazzStandards.com, LLC (publisher) . Retrieved 2009-06-14.; OCLC 71004558
  2. ^ a b c For Me and My Gal and Other Favorite Song Hits, 1915-1917, by David A. Jasen, Dover Publications (1994); OCLC 30075424
  3. ^ a b Blackface. Au confluent des voix mortes (Blackface: Where Dead Voices Gather), by Nick Tosches, Jonathan Cape (publisher) (2002), pg. 149; ISBN 2-84485-110-X; OCLC 50525736, 401741289
  4. ^ a b Spreadin' Rhythm Around: Black Popular Songwriters, 1880–1930, David A Jasen, Gene Jones, Schirmer Books (1998), pg. 170; OCLC 38216305
  5. ^ a b The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, by James Terry White, New York: James T. White Company, Vol. 17 (1920), pg. 42
  6. ^ The Book of World-famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk, by James J. Fuld (1916-2008), Toronto: General Publishing Company, Ltd. (2000) pg. 284
  7. ^ I Ain't Got Nobody (and Nobody Cares for Me), editor-in-chief: Sandra Burlingame, Portland, Oregon: jazzStandards.com, LLC (publisher) . Retrieved 2009-06-14.; OCLC 71004558
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