Tampa Red is best known as an accomplished and influential blues guitarist who had a unique single-string bottleneck style. His songwriting and his silky, polished slide technique influenced other leading Chicago blues guitarists, such as Big Bill Broonzy and Robert Nighthawk, as well as Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Mose Allison and many others. In a career spanning over 30 years he also recorded pop, R&B and hokum records.
He was born Hudson Woodbridge in Smithville, Georgia. His parents died when he was a child, and he moved to Tampa, Florida, where he was raised by his aunt and grandmother and adopted their surname, Whittaker. He emulated his older brother, Eddie, who played guitar, and he was especially inspired by an old street musician called Piccolo Pete, who first taught him to play blues licks on a guitar.
In the 1920s, having already perfected his slide technique, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, and began his career as a musician, adopting the name "Tampa Red" from his childhood home and red hair. His big break was being hired to accompany Ma Rainey and he began recording in 1928 with "It's Tight Like That", in a bawdy and humorous style that became known as "hokum". Early recordings were mostly collaborations with Thomas A. Dorsey, known at the time as Georgia Tom. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom recorded almost 90 sides, sometimes as "The Hokum Boys" or, with Frankie Jaxon, as "Tampa Red's Hokum Jug Band".
In 1928, Tampa Red became the first black musician to play a National steel-bodied resonator guitar, the loudest and showiest guitar available before amplification, acquiring one in the first year they were available. This allowed him to develop his trademark bottleneck style, playing single string runs, not block chords, which was a precursor to later blues and rock guitar soloing. The National guitar he used was a gold-plated tricone, which was found in Illinois in the 1990s and later sold to the "Experience Music Project" in Seattle. Tampa Red was known as "The Man With The Gold Guitar", and, into the 1930s, he was billed as "The Guitar Wizard".
His partnership with Dorsey ended in 1932, but he remained much in demand as a session musician, working with John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, Memphis Minnie, and many others. In 1934 he signed for Victor Records. He formed the Chicago Five, a group of session musicians who created what became known as the Bluebird sound, a precursor of the small group style of later jump blues and rock and roll bands. He was a close friend and associate of Big Bill Broonzy and Big Maceo Merriweather. He enjoyed commercial success and reasonable prosperity, and his home became a centre for the blues community, informally providing rehearsal space, bookings, and lodgings for the flow of musicians who arrived in Chicago from the Mississippi Delta as the commercial potential of blues music grew and agricultural employment in the south diminished.
By the 1940s he was playing electric guitar. In 1942 "Let Me Play With Your Poodle" was a # 4 hit on Billboard Magazine's new "Harlem Hit Parade", forerunner of the R&B chart, and his 1949 recording "When Things Go Wrong with You (It Hurts Me Too)", another R&B hit, was covered by Elmore James. He was "rediscovered" in the late 1950s, like many other surviving early recorded blues artists such as Son House and Skip James, as part of the blues revival. His final, undistinguished, recordings were in 1960.
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All Night Long
Tampa Red Lyrics
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You can't love me and my buddy, too
Oh babe, my babe, oh baby
If I had a known like I know now
I wouldn't a been tied up with ya, no how
Oh babe, my babe, oh baby
I wasn't thinkin' but you were thinkin'
How to break my heart
The way seem hard but I guess it's fair
I had a good home and I wouldn't stay there
Oh babe, oh babe, my babe
Yes, swing now
I hear ya Mr. piano player
Dog, yeah, that's it
'I'm gon' do it again for ya, everybody'
If you lose your head, you know
What goes with it finally
Look at that sax man, yes
I know baby, what you tryin' to do
You can't love me and my buddy, too
Oh babe, oh babe, my baby
If I had a known like I know, now
I wouldn't have been tied up with ya, no how
Oh babe, oh babe, my baby
It's funny, oh my honey, how we had to start
I wasn't thinkin', you was thinkin'
How to break my heart
The way seem hard but I guess it's fair
I had a good home and I wouldn't stay there
Oh babe, oh baby, oh babe
Yeah, swing it now, yeah, yes
Oh, you's goin' take us low
A long time in Georgia, somewhere
Yas, yas, yas-yas
Mellow fellow, like you wanna go dance
Oh, the way seem hard but I guess it's fair
I had a good home and wouldn't stay there
Oh babe, oh baby, oh babe, oh babe, yeah
The song “All Night Long” by Tampa Red is a blues classic that talks about the singer’s troubles in love. It is a common theme in blues music, where the singer laments about his or her misfortunes in love, which is often accompanied by a slow and melancholic tune. In this song, Tampa Red sings to his lover and says that he knows what she is trying to do, which is to love him and his buddy at the same time. He goes on to say that he regrets getting involved with her and that things would have been different if he knew what he knows now. He says that he had a good home but couldn’t stay there, implying that he was forced to leave due to his lover’s actions.
The lyrics also touch on the theme of betrayal, where Tampa Red talks about how his lover was thinking about how to break his heart. He says that he wasn’t thinking about it, but she was, which is why he was caught off guard. Despite all the trouble she has caused him, he still refers to her as “his babe,” suggesting that he still has some feelings for her. The song is a classic example of blues music and how it can be used to express the singer's deepest emotions.
Line by Line Meaning
I know baby, what you're trying to do
I understand what you're trying to do
You can't love me and my buddy, too
You can't love me and someone else at the same time
If I had a known like I know now
If I had known then what I know now
I wouldn't a been tied up with ya, no how
I wouldn't have been involved with you
It's funny, oh my honey how we had to start
It's ironic how our relationship began
I wasn't thinkin' but you were thinkin'
I wasn't considering the consequences, but you were
How to break my heart
How to hurt me emotionally
The way seem hard but I guess it's fair
The situation may be difficult, but it's probably just
I had a good home and I wouldn't stay there
I came from a good home, but I wanted to leave
Yes, swing now
Play music with a lively rhythm
I hear ya Mr. piano player
I can hear the piano player clearly
If you lose your head, you know
If you lose control of your emotions
What goes with it finally
Bad things will happen eventually
Look at that sax man, yes
Observe the saxophone player with pleasure
It's funny, oh my honey, how we had to start
It's ironic how our relationship began
I wasn't thinkin', you was thinkin'
I wasn't considering the consequences, but you were
The way seem hard but I guess it's fair
The situation may be difficult, but it's probably just
I had a good home and wouldn't stay there
I came from a good home, but I wanted to leave
Yeah, swing it now, yeah, yes
Play music with a lively rhythm
Oh, you's goin' take us low
You're going to play with a slower tempo
A long time in Georgia, somewhere
It was a long time ago in Georgia or somewhere similar
Yas, yas, yas-yas
An exclamation of affirmation or agreement
Mellow fellow, like you wanna go dance
A laid-back person who seems like they want to dance
Oh, the way seem hard but I guess it's fair
The situation may be difficult, but it's probably just
I had a good home and wouldn't stay there
I came from a good home, but I wanted to leave
Oh babe, oh baby, oh babe, oh babe, yeah
An affectionate phrase towards a person
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: SHELTON BROOKS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
DaveB
on Dead Cat On The Line
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