On American Pastimes: One of the most well known songs in the whole wide world, “House of the Rising Sun.” (Origins, Part 2).

Alan Lomax is the one. It was Lomax who brought “House of the Rising Sun” back with him from one of his many field excursions in search of American folk tunes and folklore. In his 1937 expedition through the Cumberland Gap into Appalachia Lomax recorded three separate renditions of this song on his Presto disc making machine. The most influential recording was made in Middlesboro, Kentucky by sixteen year old Georgia Turner (b. 1921), a descendent of English, Scots, and Irish settlers. She grew up without electricity (no records or radio) but most likely attending traveling medicine shows where she may have heard Tom Ashley or Roy Acuff perform it; but this is conjecture. Perhaps her ancestors brought it with them from the British Isles.

Whomever she heard it from, she seems to have made it her own. Turner’s is a bluesy rendition; using a blues scale in a major key that includes vocal scoops and slides, all hallmarks of American blues style vocals. She tells the tale from the female perspective:

My mother she’s a tailor
She’d sew those new blue jeans
My sweetheart he’s a drunkard, Lord, Lord,
Drinks down in New Orleans.

Turner’s melody is the version that Lomax transcribed for sheet music publication. He published the sheet music (the lyrics were a composite from the three field recordings) in his 1941 book “Our Singing Country.” He graciously listed Turner as ‘arranger’ so she could collect some royalties. Back in New York City he shared his enthusiasm for the song with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Josh White and Leadbelly. As Seeger told journalist Ted Anthony, Lomax “purposefully tried to infect us with the music that he collected.” In this case he succeeded as Seeger’s Almanac Singers, Leadbelly and Josh White all recorded versions in the 1940’s, and by the early 1950’s “House of the Rising Sun” was a folk music standard being performed by everyone who called themselves a folk musician.

White later wrote that he had already heard the song as youngster in North Carolina. His version is especially interesting: He is the first to record it in a minor key giving it a much darker feel, and as the track fades out, you can hear his guitar stop strumming and perform a quietly eerie chord arpeggio. Those two additions became central features of the most well-known version of the song that was to be recorded over twenty years later.

According to a number of musicians, when he first showed up in New York in 1961 Bob Dylan copied Woody Guthrie and performed the published Lomax version of “Rising Sun” just as Woody did. Then Dylan met Dave Van Ronk. He writes that Van Ronk “seemed ancient, battle-tested. Every night I sat at the foot of a time-worn monument…I’d never heard that song [Rising Sun] before, but I heard it every night because Van Ronk would do it. I thought he was really onto something with that song. So I recorded it.” Dave Van Ronk came from a jazz background to folk music and to this song in the 1950’s. He played “House of the Rising Son” using Lomax’s lyric text, but he altered the chords and used a descending half-step progression that is common in jazz performances.

Van Ronk writes: “Bobby picked up the chord changes from me…it really altered the song considerably…He asked me if I would mind if he recorded my version. And I had plans to record it so I said ‘Gee Bob, I’d rather you didn’t because I’m going to record it myself soon.’ And Bobby said, ‘Uh-oh.’ He had already recorded it.” Van Ronk claimed to be only slightly perturbed at the time. Eventually though he stopped performing the song because once Dylan’s album came out, everyone thought it was Dylan’s song. Writes Van Ronk: “Now that was very annoying.”

In 1964, the Animals were a young English blues band that was the opening act of a Chuck Berry & Jerry Lee Lewis concert tour of England. They were primarily playing covers of blues standards, but were looking for something new to play on tour, something to encore with. Singer Eric Burdon told Ted Anthony, “you can’t out-rock Chuck Berry” so the band wanted something that was distinctive and powerful, but not rock ‘n roll. How they came upon “House of the Rising Son” is unclear. Burdon says he was familiar with Josh White’s and perhaps other folk versions. Drummer John Steel says that it was strictly Dylan’s version that provided inspiration; he insists that none of the members were familiar with the song until they heard Dylan’s album. They arranged it and rehearsed it collectively and then began performing it on stage. The audience reaction was immediate and ecstatic. In mid-tour they went into a studio and in ten minutes recorded the four minute single that most of the civilized world is now familiar with. Both their organist Alan Price and their producer Mickie Most didn’t want to record it; it was too long and it was about prostitution! But the producer gave in only because it was copy-right free, and therefore wouldn’t cost him anything. Guitarist Hilton Valentine told Anthony “we took the chord sequence from the Dylan version and used arpeggios instead of strumming.” The guitarist’s seven-note intro arpeggio provides the building blocks of this version. Burdon’s raw vocals and Alan Prices’ scorching organ build into a four minute minor key blues crescendo. Within a few months it was a radio hit. The Animals became 60’s superstars, but only one member profited from the sales of their hit. Alan Price was given arranger’s credit on the record. He’s received full publishing royalties ever since. The other band members receive nothing. Given Price’s original lack of enthusiasm for the tune, their animosity and sense of betrayal runs deep.

But in music, what goes around comes around, and in a filmed interview with Martin Scorcese, Dave Van Ronk said: “Later on, when Eric Burdon and the Animals picked the song up from Bobby and recorded it, Bobby told me that he had to drop the song because everyone was accusing him of ripping it off of Eric Burdon.” Then Van Ronk laughs. And in an Animals bio, Steel and Burdon both say that Dylan told them that when he heard the Animals version on his car radio he stopped driving to listen, and then he jumped out of the car and banged on its hood in inspiration. That’s what he wanted his songs to sound like: Electric!

So from a medicine show performance by Ashley or Acuff to the ears of Georgia Turner; from Turner to Lomax’s Presto disc making machine; from Lomax to urban folk singers, from Van Ronk to Dylan; and Dylan to the Animals. So much wrapped up within the history of this one song: The Animals didn’t last very long as a band but they remain world famous; Dylan is not just a good folk singer but a rock icon; and “House of the Rising Sun” is not an obscure folk tune but has been recorded in every language that has a commercial music market, and is firmly implanted in the musical consciousness of the world.

Sources: “Chronicles Volume 1” by Bob Dylan (Simon & Schuster 2004), “Mayor of McDougal Street: A Memoir” by Dave Van Ronk (Da Capo Press 2005), “Josh White: Society Blues” by Elijah Wald (UMass Press 2000), “Chasing the Rising Sun: Journey of an American Song” by Ted Anthony (Simon & Schuster 2007).

Photo: Lomax’s Presto Disc Making Machine.