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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Seminole blues
Tampa Red Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
She won't be back no more
My baby's gone, she won't be back no more
She left this mornin', she caught that Seminole
I got the blues so bad
It hurt my tongue to talk
It hurt my tongue to talk
It hurt my tongue to talk
I would follow my baby
But it hurt my feet to walk
She gimme her love
Even let me draw her pay
She let me draw her pay, yeah
She give me her love
Even let me draw her pay
She was a real good woman
But unkindness drove her away
I've got the Seminole blues
Leaving on my mind
Leaving on my mind
Seminole blues
Leaving on my mind
I'm goin' to find my baby
If I have to ride the blind
The lyrics of Tampa Red's Seminole Blues is a story about someone who is experiencing a difficult time. The singer's lover left him for someone from the Seminole tribe. The song expresses the feelings of heartbreak and loss caused by the departure of someone you love. The first three lines repeat the message that his lover left him and will not come back. The fourth line mentions the Seminole tribe as the reason for the departure.
In the second verse, the singer attests to the extent of his sadness. The pain is so severe that it is difficult to speak without feeling it. The third and fourth lines confirm this. The third verse shows how much the singer loved his former lover. She cared for him and even provided him with money. He attributes the loss of the relationship to someone or something else's unkindness, which drove them apart.
The last verse shows the determination of the singer to move on and search for his lost love. He intends to search until he finds her, even if he has to do it through railroads or hitchhiking ("ride the blind.")
Line by Line Meaning
My baby's gone, won't be back no more
My girlfriend left me and won't return.
She won't be back no more
She doesn't want to see me again.
My baby's gone, she won't be back no more
My lover decided to leave me permanently.
She left this mornin', she caught that Seminole
She left early today by taking the Seminole train.
I got the blues so bad
I'm feeling overwhelmingly sad.
It hurt my tongue to talk
It's hard for me to express my emotions.
It hurt my tongue to talk
I'm in too much emotional pain to even speak.
The blues so bad
I'm experiencing an intense emotional state.
It hurt my tongue to talk
I'm having difficulty finding the words to express my sadness.
I would follow my baby
I want to find and join my ex-girlfriend.
But it hurt my feet to walk
It's difficult for me to take any action because of my overwhelming sadness.
She gimme her love
My girlfriend showed me love and affection.
Even let me draw her pay
She even supported me financially.
She let me draw her pay, yeah
She was generous enough to share her financial resources with me.
She give me her love
She used to love me deeply.
Even let me draw her pay
She was dedicated to our relationship.
She was a real good woman
She was a great girlfriend.
But unkindness drove her away
My negative attitude caused her to leave.
I've got the Seminole blues
I'm feeling sad about my girlfriend leaving on the Seminole train.
Leaving on my mind
I can't stop thinking about her leaving.
Seminole blues
The sadness I feel about her leaving on the Seminole train.
Leaving on my mind
I'm haunted by thoughts of her leaving and I'm struggling to move on.
I'm goin' to find my baby
I'm determined to find my ex-girlfriend.
If I have to ride the blind
I'll do whatever it takes to track her down, even if it means traveling in difficult conditions.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: HUDSON WHITTAKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
mark holland
I'm a huge Larkin Poe fan and this would be a perfect song form them to cover... going to share on their FB page.
Blues Oddity
As much of a Robert Johnson fan I am, I have to say I love this more. Dig.
Warren Simpson
???
Titwy
I love Tampa Red
Jenna Gigs
I love this. I love this soooo much.
SiggyMe
Guess the Red mean Native American maybe Seminole. Wonder if he meet my great grandfather who was a blind Native American playing guitar all over Arkansas in the 30's and 40's. Think he was playing a Gibson as my Aunt, his daughter, has a picture of the guitar she used to play.
Many freed slaves join the Seminoles and help fight US Army trying to pacify them, which it didn't. The government sued for peace to get out of war they were losing. So there are many people of mixed heritage as my family is.....
Mico Veliki
By the way did your grandpa record? And what is his name?
Mico Veliki
SiggyMe "Red" was a title put on ccolored men with very almost white skin just like you have jet black, brown and yellow for the women (note this was not offensive because it was put by black people them selfs)