Christmas songs abound right now, but how about a tune for the downtrodden holiday shopper, the weary wielder of the maxed-out debit card?
Well, your friends in The Flood can’t pick up the tab, but we can at least give you a blues to suit your mood, brought to you from a recent gig.
After a day of rushing around spending money you don’t have to buy things people don’t want, just take our advice: If you lose your money, please don’t lose your mind!
Sonny and Brownie
Nobody ever did the blues better than Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
Back in the late 1950s they recorded an incredible album for Smithsonian Folkways called "Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry Sing," which offered a number of original compositions, including this song.
It was from that album that we took our inspiration for this blues with which we often open or close a rehearsal, just because it's so much fun to play.
Folk Process
Now, we don’t do the tune exactly the way Sonny and Brownie did it. The whole “folk process” idea invites us to bring our own style and attitude to all the music we play. And that was something that Sonny and Brownie knew well, because they too were building on some blues they had heard from their own heroes.
The evidence is in the fact that the song’s provocative key line — “If you lose your money, please don’t lose your mind” — didn’t originate with them.
Back in 1936, Blind Boy Fuller used exactly the same line in his recording of “Keep Away From My Woman.” But, hey, it didn’t start with Fuller either.
Seven years earlier, in 1929, Blind Joe Reynolds used the same line to open his tune, “Outside Woman Blues,” a song, incidentally, that would be covered 40 years later by Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce’s classic rock group, Cream.
The bottom line is we’re in good company in offering our take on the tune.
Real Christmas Tunes
But for Christmas? Seriously? Okay, okay, it is a cheap trick for us to co-op this great old blues and try to sneak it into a Christmas rotation, so we’re prepared to make amends.
If you’re looking for a real holiday playlist, take a listen to the “La Flood Navidad” special blend over in our free Radio Floodango music streaming service. Just click here to whisked away to The Flood web site.
If You Lose Your Money