No one is sure who first sang the song that is now known as House Of The Rising Sun but it goes back, as far as anyone can tell, to 1933 and probably years before that; sung by miners or whores or those who just were trying to earn a few bucks while working on a medicine show. At least that was the case of Clarence “Tom” Ashley who was the first one to record the song, alongside Doc Watson. Ashley claims his grandfather had taught him the song and it was one he performed often throughout Southern Appalachia in between black face comedy shows.
Four years went by and nothing much came of the song and it would have probably been forgotten, or left to the saloons and brothels, if it weren’t the chance meeting of Alan Lomax and Georgia Turner. Lomax, an American Folklorist, was working for the Library of Congress and his sole purpose was to find and document songs from the South. He had overhead the barely sixteen year old Georgia Turner singing a song she called “Risin’ Sun Blues” and they recorded it together.
This eventually lead to the song being covered by plenty of other folk artists— most notably Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan.
Perhaps the most recognizable version was recorded by Eric Burdon and The Animals in 1964. Eric Burdon later claimed to have heard the song in a night club performed by British Folk Star, Johnny Handle and decided, while touring with Chuck Berry, to play the song which they had arranged to have a more rock n roll vibe and to fit the deep baritone voice of their lead singer.
This version was groundbreaking in two ways: first, the song’s length was a little over four minutes, something unheard of at the time of the two-minute-long-hits that controlled the radio waves, and secondly, the lyrics were shifted from being about a prostitute to being about a gambler, some say to make it more radio friendly, and suddenly the song found a much larger audience.
It was such a hit that whenever Bob Dylan tried to play his rendition during a live set he was often asked if he learned the song from The Animals and for years it was considered, without much argument, that Eric Burdon wrote the song.
There were many other covers from Joan Baez to Waylon Jennings to Frijed Pink to Muse.
The lyrics are always different, it is sometimes told through a prospective of a whore, a gambler or even a junkie and it is either directed at the narrator’s mother, father, brother or sister but the feeling of regret and the need for redemption is always there. And maybe that is the reason why this particular song will never grow old, no matter how many covers are out there.
Harry Nilsson, often credited simply as ‘Nilsson’, was an American singer-songwriter who is mostly known for such hits at ‘Everybody’s Talkin’, the song featured in the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, or the playful tune ‘Coconut’, rumoured to be about abortion, which was parodied in the infamous Coca-Cola ad.
His style was eclectic and it is not uncommon for the fans of one album to be the critics of another. He had covered many hits, in his own way, from the melodramatic rendition of Badfinger’s Without You to his piano driven take on Three Dog Night’s One. His own lyrics were often blunt and crass, if not also laced with a dark, cynical humor that was not appreciated by his more conservative following who enjoyed his take on classics such as “As Times Goes Bye” and “Over the Rainbow”.
I suppose all that needs to be said about Harry Nilsson can be found in this short anecdote:
Once, during an interview, John Lennon was asked who he considers to be the greatest living American musican.
Nilsson, he replied.
The interviewer turned and asked Paul McCartney the same question.
Nilsson, he replied.
Harry Nilsson covered plenty of the Beatles material and even recorded once or twice with John Lennon.
Despite being notoriously shy, which lead to very few live performances, Nilsson broke out of his comfort zone, shortly after Lennon was shot and killed, to speak in favor of stricter gun laws and regulations.
In 1994 he died of a heart attack.
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Best Song: 1941 (Semi-Autobiographical track which mirrors his own story of abandonment with the opening lines ‘well, in 1941 the happy father had a son and in 1944 the father walked right out the door’)
Best Album: Harry (Okay, maybe not his BEST album but definitely the best album to start out with. It introduces the listener to what makes Harry Nilsson unique without overstaying its welcome.)
