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The Boll Weevil Song

"Mississippi Boweevil Blues"
Single by Charlie Patton
B-side "Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues"
Released 1929
Format 78"
Recorded June 14, 1929
Richmond, Indiana
Genre Delta blues
Length 3:09
Label Paramount
Songwriter(s) Charlie Patton
Producer(s) H.C. Spier
Charlie Patton singles chronology
"String Module Error: Match not found"
(1929)
"Mississippi Boweevil Blues"
(1929)
"Down the Dirt Road Blues"'"
(1929)
"Prayer of Death (Parts 1 & 2)
(1929)"
"Mississippi Boweevil Blues"
(1929)
"Down the Dirt Road Blues"
(1929)
"The Boll Weevil Song"
Single by Brook Benton
from the album The Boll Weevil Song and 11 Other Great Hits
B-side "Your Eyes"
Released 1961
Format 7" (45 rpm)
Genre Novelty song
Length 2:39
Label Mercury
Songwriter(s) Traditional, arranged:
Brook Benton
Clyde Otis
Producer(s) Shelby Singleton
Brook Benton singles chronology
"Think Twice"
(1961)
"The Boll Weevil Song"
(1961)
"Hit Record"
(1962)
"Think Twice"
(1961)
"The Boll Weevil Song"
(1961)
"Hit Record"
(1962)
"Boll Weevil Song"
Single by Eddie Cochran
from the album Never to Be Forgotten
A-side "Somethin' Else"
Released July 1959
Format 7" 45rpm
Recorded 23 June 1959
Genre Rock and roll
Label Liberty F-55203
Songwriter(s) Traditional
Producer(s) Eddie Cochran
Eddie Cochran singles chronology
"Teenage Heaven"
(1959)
"Boll Weevil Song"
(1959)
"Hallelujah, I Love Her So"
(1959)
"Teenage Heaven"
(1959)
"Somethin' Else"
(1959)
"Hallelujah, I Love Her So"
(1959)

"Boll Weevil" is a traditional blues song, also known by similar titles such as "Boweavil" or "Boll Weevil Blues". Although many songs about the boll weevil were recorded by blues musicians during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, this one has become well known, thanks to Lead Belly's rendition of it as recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax in 1934. A 1961 adaptation by Brook Benton became a pop hit, reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

The lyrics deal with the boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis), a beetle, which feeds on cotton buds and flowers, that migrated into the U.S. from Mexico in the late 19th century and had infested all U.S. cotton-growing areas by the 1920s, causing severe devastation to the industry.

The song is known to be "at least a century old."

Perhaps as early as 1908, blues pioneer Charley Patton wrote a song called "Mississippi Boweevil Blues" and recorded it in July 1929 (as "The Masked Marvel") for Paramount Records. Some of the lyrics are similar to "Boll Weevil," describing the first time and "the next time" the narrator saw the boll weevil and making reference to the weevil's family and home. "Mother of the Blues" Ma Rainey recorded a song called "Bo-Weavil Blues" in Chicago in December 1923, and Bessie Smith covered it in 1924, but the song had little in common with Lead Belly's "Boll Weevil" aside from the subject matter.

A version recorded by the Old Time Country musician Gid Tanner in 1924 (see Country Music Records A Discography, 1921 -1942, Tony Russell, Oxford University Press, 2004) is extremely similar to Lead Belly's both in the tune and the dialog lyrics. It can be accessed at this link: https://www.myspace.com/gidtanner/music/songs?filter=featured#!

At least two other early Country versions of Boll Weevil or Boll Weevil Blues (Tanner's title) are listed in Russell.

In both Jaybird Coleman's "Boll Weevil," from the late 1920s, and Blind Willie McTell's, from the 1930s, we find the element of a dialogue between the boll weevil and a farmer. W.A. Lindsey & Alvin Condor's "Boll Weevil" recorded February 24, 1928 contains these same elements.


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