In 1936, the Harlem Hamfats released a record with the song "The Weed Smoker's Dream" on it. McCoy later refined the tune, changed the lyrics and titled the new song "Why Don't You Do Right?" for Lil Green, who recorded it in 1941. It was covered a year later by both Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee, becoming Lee's first hit single. "Why Don't You Do Right?" remains a jazz standard and is McCoy's most enduring composition.
At the outbreak of World War II Charlie McCoy entered the military, but a heart condition kept Joe McCoy from service. Out on his own, he created a band known as "Big Joe and his Rhythm" that performed together throughout most of the 1940s. The band again included his brother Charlie on mandolin and Robert Nighthawk on harmonica.[3] In 1950, at the age of 44, McCoy died of heart disease in Chicago, only a few months before his brother Charlie. They are both buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant took his and Memphis Minnie's recording of "When the Levee Breaks," which was in his personal collection, and presented it to guitarist Jimmy Page, who revamped it and slightly altered it lyrically, and help record it on Led Zeppelin's 1971 album, Led Zeppelin IV.
In addition to those mentioned earlier, McCoy's songs have also been covered by Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, The Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Ann Kelly, Cleo Laine and A Perfect Circle.
Memphis Minnie McCoy-Lawler (born Lizzie Douglas, June 3, 1897 in Algiers, Louisiana; died August 6, 1973 in Memphis, Tennessee) was an American Blues guitarist, vocalist, and composer.
Born Lizzie Douglas in Algiers, Louisiana, Minnie was one of the most influential and pioneering female blues musicians and guitarists of all time. She recorded for forty years, almost unheard of for any woman in show business at the time and possibly unique among female blues artists. A flamboyant character who wore bracelets made of silver dollars, she was the biggest female blues singer from the early Depression years through World War II. One of the first blues artists to take up the electric guitar, in 1942, she combined her Louisiana-country roots with Memphis blues to produce her own unique country-blues sound; along with Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red, she took country blues into electric urban blues, paving the way for giants like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Little Walter, and Jimmy Rogers to travel from the small towns of the south to the big cities of the north. She was married three times, and each husband was an accomplished blues guitarist: Kansas Joe McCoy (a.k.a. "Kansas Joe") later of the Harlem Hamfats, Casey Bill Weldon of the Memphis Jug Band, and Ernest "Little Son Joe" Lawlers.[1] Paul and Beth Garon's 1992 biography on Memphis Minnie, Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues, makes no mention of a marriage to Weldon, but only says that she recorded two sides with him, in November 1935, for Bluebird Records. It does describe the relationships and marriages to McCoy and Lawlers.[2]
After learning to play guitar and banjo as a child, she ran away from home at the age of thirteen. She travelled to Memphis, Tennessee, playing guitar in nightclubs and on the street as Lizzie "Kid" Douglas. The next year, she joined the Ringling Brothers circus. Her marriage and recording debut came in 1929, to and with Kansas Joe McCoy, when a Columbia Records talent scout heard them playing in a Beale Street barbershop in their distinctive "Memphis style," and their song "Bumble Bee" became a hit.[3] In the 1930s she moved to Chicago, Illinois with Joe. She and McCoy broke up in 1935, and by 1939 she was with Little Son Joe Lawlers, with whom she recorded nearly 200 records. In the 1940s she formed a touring Vaudeville company. From the 1950s on, however, public interest in her music declined, and in 1957 she and Lawlers returned to Memphis. Lawlers died in 1961.
New Dirty Dozen
Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
What you're thinking about ain't on my mind, that stuff you got is the sorriest kind
Now you're a sorry mistreater, robber and a cheater
Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin
Your mama do the lordy lord
Come all of you women's outta be in the can, out on the corner stopping every man,
Hollering "Soap is a nickel and the towel is free, I'm pigmeat, pappy, now who wants me?"
Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin
Your mama do the lordy lord
Now the funniest thing I ever seen, tom cat jumping on a sewing machine
Sewing machine run so fast, took 99 stitches in his yas, yas, yas
Now he's a cruel mistreater, robber and a cheater
Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin
Your mama do the lordy lord
Now I'm gonna tell you all about old man Bell, he can't see but he sure can smell
Fish-man passed here the other day, hollering "Hey, pretty mama, I'm going your way"
I know all about your pappy and your mammy,
your big fat sister and your little brother Sammy,
your auntie and your uncle and your ma's and pa's,
they all got drunk and showed their Santa Claus
Now they're all drunken mistreaters, robbers and a cheaters
Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin
Your mama do the lordy lord
The lyrics of the song "New Dirty Dozen" by Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie are a typical example of a "dozens" game in African American culture. The dozens are a game of verbal insults and teasing that can be played among friends or strangers, and it involves trading insults that become increasingly provocative and offensive. In the song, the performers are launching a series of verbal attacks against various people, including mistreaters, robbers, and cheaters. The lyrics are full of colorful expressions and metaphors, and the tone of the song is playful and humorous.
The song is structured around a call and response pattern, with the performers inviting the audience to join the game by "starting to walk" and "listening to their dozen talk." The lyrics are divided into several verses, with each one targeting a different group of people or containing a different insult. The performers use a lot of repetition and exaggeration, such as the tomcat that "took 99 stitches in his yas, yas, yas." The chorus, "Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin, your mama do the lordy lord," serves as a refrain that ties the different verses together.
Line by Line Meaning
Come all you folks and start to walk, I'm fixing to start my dozen talk
Gather around and listen up, I'm about to start talking some trash against you and your sorry ways.
What you're thinking about ain't on my mind, that stuff you got is the sorriest kind
I don't care about your thoughts, your possessions are worthless and pathetic.
Now you're a sorry mistreater, robber and a cheater
You are a terrible person who mistreats, robs, and cheats others.
Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin
I'll insult and shame you and your entire family.
Your mama do the lordy lord
Even your mother cannot save you from being insulted and ridiculed.
Come all of you women's outta be in the can, out on the corner stopping every man, Hollering "Soap is a nickel and the towel is free, I'm pigmeat, pappy, now who wants me?"
All you women standing on the corner, offering yourself to any man who will pay attention to you, you are nothing but worthless meat.
You's a old mistreater, robber and a cheater
You are an old, experienced scoundrel who mistreats, robs, and cheats others.
Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin
I'll insult and shame you and your entire family.
Your mama do the lordy lord
Even your mother cannot save you from being insulted and ridiculed.
Now the funniest thing I ever seen, tom cat jumping on a sewing machine, Sewing machine run so fast, took 99 stitches in his yas, yas, yas
I once saw a hilarious sight of a cat jumping on a sewing machine, which ran so fast that it sewed 99 stitches on its backside.
Now he's a cruel mistreater, robber and a cheater
Even the cat in that story is now a cruel scoundrel who mistreats, robs, and cheats others.
Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin
I'll insult and shame you and your entire family.
Your mama do the lordy lord
Even your mother cannot save you from being insulted and ridiculed.
Now I'm gonna tell you all about old man Bell, he can't see but he sure can smell
Let me tell you about an old man named Bell, who may be blind but still has a keen sense of smell.
Fish-man passed here the other day, hollering "Hey, pretty mama, I'm going your way"
A fisherman came by here recently, calling out to women and trying to pick them up.
I know all about your pappy and your mammy, your big fat sister and your little brother Sammy, your auntie and your uncle and your ma's and pa's, they all got drunk and showed their Santa Claus
I know all about your entire family - your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and even grandparents - and how they all got drunk and revealed their true, shameful selves.
Now they're all drunken mistreaters, robbers and a cheaters, Slip you in the dozens, your papa and your cousin, Your mama do the lordy lord
Your entire family is made up of drunken scoundrels who mistreat, rob, and cheat others. I'll insult and shame them all, including your parents, siblings, and even your mother.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: J. MAYO WILLIAMS, RUFUS PERRYMAN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind