Hello nautico,
The song's name is "Drinkin' Wine Spo-dee-o-dee." It was written by
J. Mayo Williams and folk/blues great Brownie McGhee's little brother
Granville "Stick" McGhee, who apparently adapted it from a ditty he
had heard during his service in WWII.
It has been recorded by many artists since Atlantic Records released
Stick McGhee's version in 1949, including Johnnie Burnette, Charlie
Daniels, Lightning Hopkins and Brownie McGhee, among others.
My guess, though, is that the version you remember was the hit
recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis. That version is included on many of "The
Killer's" CD compilations. The one that I have is called Jerry Lee
Lewis: 18 Original Sun Greatest Hits, released by Rhino in 1984. That
compilation is still in print and available from the usual online
sources, as are other Lewis "Greatest Hits' collections that contains
his classic rendition of this song.
Here is a link to the ordering page at the Barnes & Noble site:
Barnes & Noble: 18 Original Sun Greatest Hits
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?sourceid=00401402267199002824&ean=081227025526&bfdate=01-26-2004+13:33:10
And here's the All Music Guide's review of that collection:
All Music Guide: 18 Original Sun Greatest Hits
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDMISS70401052156582526&sql=A66jieaw04xf7
What does "Spo-dee-o-dee" mean? Supposedly they are nonsense
syllables that were substituted by Stick McGhee "for another four
syllable word now much loved and used by gangster rappers, but not
really suitable for pop music radio either in the late '40s or,
indeed, the early 21st century." That's according to an edition of
roots music historian Richard Haslop's regular feature on South
African radio broadcaster SAfm:
SAfm: Programmes: Rafe Lavine Show: Haslops HitStory (April 23, 2003)
http://safm.co.za/programmes/current/roots/hh23042003.html
Additional Links:
Here is a link to the page on the All Music Guide site that lists the
artists who have recorded the song on LP or CD:
All Music Guide: Drinkin' Wine Spo-dee-o-dee
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDMISS70401052156582526&sql=H368455
The lyrics to Jerry Lee Lewis' version of Drinkin' Wine Spo-dee-o-dee
can be found here:
Lyrics Galaxy: Drinkin' Wine Spee-dee-o-dee
http://www.lyricsgalaxy.de/index.php?page=showtext&lid=12737
Search Strategy:
I recognized the song from your description and got the correct
spelling of its name by checking the Lewis compilations that I own. I
then went to the All Music Guide to get the information on recordings
of it and supplemented that with simple Google searches using terms
such as:
"spo-dee-o-dee"
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=+spo%2Ddee%2Do%2Ddee++
"spo-dee-o-dee" lewis
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=+spo-dee-o-dee++lewis
"spo-dee-o-dee" lyrics
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=+spo-dee-o-dee++lyrics
Finally, I found the source for the derivation of the word
"spo-dee-o-dee" with the following Google search:
"spo-dee-o-dee" means
://www.google.com/search?q=spo-dee-o-dee+means&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N
I am confident that this is the information you are seeking. If
anything is unclear, please ask for clarification before rating this
answer.
markj-ga |
