The Monday Blues

I thought we’d head to the swamp today.

“I’m a King Bee” is what they call a “swamp blues” song.  It was written and first recorded by Slim Harpo in 1957. It has been performed and recorded by numerous blues and other artists since, but Slim’s version is paramount.

Harpo’s legal name was James Moore. He played guitar and was a master of the blues harmonica, known in blues circles as a “harp”. Influenced in style by Jimmy Reed, he began performing in Baton Rouge bars using the name “Harmonica Slim”

He started his recording career in March 1957, working with the A&R man and record producer J. D. “Jay” Miller in Crowley, Louisiana. To differentiate himself from another performer called Harmonica Slim he took his wife’s suggestion and adopted the name Slim Harpo.

His most successful and influential recordings included today’s song “I’m a King Bee” (1957), “Rainin’ in My Heart” (1961), and “Baby Scratch My Back” (1966), which reached number one on Billboard’s R&B chart and number 16 on its broader Hot 100 singles chart.

The recording features an arrangement and instrumentation that was typical of J.D. Miller’s production approach. Accompanying Slim Harpo were Gabriel “Guitar Gable” Perrodin on guitar, John “Fats” Perrodin on bass, and Clarence “Jockey” Etienne on drums.

The song has an interesting feel to it in that it has an irregular number of bars (as opposed to the standard 12 bars.) According to the well known blues historian Gerard Herzhaft, it is derived from songs by Memphis Minnie, Bo Carter and the great Muddy Waters. Herhaft states that the song uses the rhythm figure from “Rockin’ and Rollin” by Lil’ Son Jackson.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Excello Records originally released it in 1957 as the B-Side to his debut solo single, “I Got Love if You Want It”

Music critic Cub Koda wrote of Slim’s appeal:

Harpo was more adaptable than [Jimmy] Reed or most other bluesmen. His material not only made the national charts, but also proved to be quite adaptable for white artists on both sides of the Atlantic … A people-pleasing club entertainer, he certainly wasn’t above working rock & roll rhythms into his music, along with hard-stressed, country & western vocal inflections … By the time his first single became a Southern jukebox favorite, his songs were being adapted and played by white musicians left and right. Here was good-time Saturday-night blues that could be sung by elements of the Caucasian persuasion with a straight face.

In 2008, “I’m a King Bee” received a Grammy Hall Of Fame Award which “honors recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance”

Let’s buzz around the hive…..