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See See Rider

"See See Rider Blues"
Single by Ma Rainey
B-side "Jealous Hearted Blues"
Released 1924 (1924)–1925
Format 10-inch 78 rpm record
Recorded October 16, 1924
Genre Blues
Length 3:16
Label Paramount (no. 12252)
Writer(s) Ma Rainey, Lena Arant
Ma Rainey singles chronology
"Booze and Blues"/ "Toad Frog Blues"
(1924)
"See See Rider Blues"
(1924)
"Cell Bound Blues"/ "Ya Da Do"
(1924)

"See See Rider", also known as "C.C. Rider", "See See Rider Blues" or "Easy Rider", is a popular American 12-bar blues song. Gertrude "Ma" Rainey recorded it in 1924 followed by many other musicians over the years.

The song uses mostly traditional blues lyrics to tell the story of an unfaithful lover, commonly called an easy rider: "See see rider, see what you have done," making a play on the word see and the sound of easy.

Ma Rainey's recording, "See See Rider Blues", was a popular song in 1925. Numerous musicians later recorded their own versions, including Big Bill Broonzy, Mississippi John Hurt, Lead Belly, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Peggy Lee. Broonzy claimed that "when he was about 9 or 10—that is, around 1908, in the Delta (Jefferson County, Arkansas)—he learned to play the blues from an itinerant songster named "See See Rider", "a former slave, who played a one-string fiddle ... one of the first singers of what would later be called the blues."

In 1943, a version by Wee Bea Booze reached number one on Billboard magazine's "Harlem Hit Parade," a precursor of the rhythm and blues chart. Some blues critics consider this to be the definitive version of the song. A doo-wop version was recorded by Sonny Til and the Orioles in 1952. Later rocked-up hit versions were recorded by Chuck Willis (as "C.C. Rider," a number one R&B hit and a number 12 pop hit in 1957) and LaVern Baker (number nine R&B and number 34 pop in 1963). Willis's version gave birth to the dance craze "The Stroll."


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