"Hesitation Blues" is a popular song adapted from a traditional tune. One version was published by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and

Art Gillham Art Gillham (January 1, 1895, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri – June 6, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia) was an American songwriter who was among the first crooners, a pioneer radio artist, and a recording ...

. Another was published by W.C. Handy as "Hesitating Blues". Because the tune is traditional, many artists have taken credit as writer, frequently adapting the lyrics of one of the two published versions. Adaptations of the lyrics vary widely, though typically the refrain is recognizably consistent. The song is a

jug band A jug band is a musical band, band employing a jug (instrument), jug player and a mix of conventional and homemade instruments. These homemade instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making sound, like the washtub bass, washbo ...

standard and is also played as

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and sometimes as Western swing. It is cataloged as

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...

No. 11765. Composer

William Grant Still William Grant Still Jr. (May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978) was an American composer of nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and more than thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works ...

arranged a version of the song in 1916 while working with Handy.

Smythe, Middleton and Gillham version

The three men were involved in the music publishing business in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. About 1914 they joined a band and went to Los Angeles. They passed their traveling time making up verses to a traditional tune. When they returned to St. Louis the trio went their separate ways.

remained in St. Louis, Billy Smythe went to Louisville, Smythe's brother-in-law Scott Middleton went to Chicago. In 1915 Billy Smythe published their musings as "Hesitation Blues" but did not credit Gillham. A dispute over the credits was resolved a few years later when Gillham and Smythe began writing other songs as a team with the sheet music stating "by the writers of Hesitation Blues". One of the first popular recordings of this song was an instrumental version by the Victor Military Band, with authorship attributed solely to Smythe. It was made on September 15, 1916 at the Victor Talking Machine Company in a Camden, New Jersey factory. This recording stayed in the Victor's catalog as the A-side of Record Number 18163 until January 1923; in February 2009, a video presenting the audio of that recording was added to YouTube. The song was also recorded for Edison Records in 1919 by

Al Bernard Alfred Aloysous Bernard (November 23, 1888 – March 6, 1949) was an American vaudeville singer, known as "The Boy From Dixie", who was most popular during the 1910s through early 1930s. Life Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he became a blackface ...

and exists as a Blue Amberol cylinder recording and as an Edison Diamond Disc matrix recording. Audio files of this recording are preserved at the Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project of the University of California Santa Barbara.

performed the song on radio and on February 25, 1925 recorded it for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

as one of the first electrical recordings (Master 140390, released as Columbia 343-D). The recording has 9 verses and a refrain, including: The song was republished in 1926 giving credit to the three writers. The 1926 publication was a different arrangement with different lyrics added to the 1915 publication. On February 22, 1935, The San Antonio Light's page 1 column, Around The Plaza told the story of Smythe-Middleton-Gillham's Hesitation Blues. On February 6, 1941 the paper also had an article on page 1 "Getting In Swing Of Hit Tunes" about the writing of Hesitation Blues. The 1964 version by the

Holy Modal Rounders The Holy Modal Rounders was an American folk music group, originally the duo of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, who formed in 1963 on the Lower East Side of New York City. Although they achieved only limited commercial and critical success in th ...

featured the first use of the term "

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluci ...

" in popular music in the verse "Got my psycho-delic feet, in my psycho-delic shoes, I believe lordy mama got the psycho-delic blues, tell me how long do I have to wait, or can I get you now, or must I hesitay-ay-ay-ate". The original sleeve notes (as reproduced in the CD notes) state "A Charlie Poole hit. Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers recorded an incredible number of songs that are personal favorites of mine."

W.C. Handy version

The same traditional tune was also arranged by W.C. Handy and published in 1915 as "Hesitating Blues". Handy's version shares the melody, but the lyrics are different. His chorus is a variation on the "how long" lyrics in the Smythe, Middleton and Gillham version. The verse, however, is substantially different, telling a story of separated lovers unable to reach each other by phone. There are many recorded versions of the Handy song, including ones by Prince's Band,

James Reese Europe James Reese Europe (February 22, 1880 – May 9, 1919) was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the African-American music scene of New York City in the 1910s. Eubie Blake called him ...

's 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Marching Band,

Esther Bigeou Esther Bigeou (1893 – November 15, 1934) was an American vaudeville and blues singer. Billed as "The Girl with the Million Dollar Smile", she was one of the classic female blues singers popular in the 1920s. Biography She was born Hester Bijo ...

Eartha Kitt Eartha Mae Kitt (née Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress. She was known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Baby" ...

Lena Horne Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years and covered film, television and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of the C ...

, and

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

. W. C. Handy, in his ''Blues Anthology'' stated the tune was from an old spiritual.

Use by Langston Hughes in the poem ''Ask Your Mama''

At the beginning of his poem sequence '' Ask Your Mama'',

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. An early innovator of jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harl ...

says: "The traditional folk melody of the 'Hesitation Blues' is the leitmotif for this poem." Throughout the poem, Hughes placed musical direction for the poem on the right margin of each page. The direction calls for performance of song several times in the poem sequence. In his biography of Hughes,

Arnold Rampersad Arnold Rampersad (born 13 November 1941) is a biographer, literary critic, and academic, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to the US in 1965. The second volume (1989) of his ''Life of Langston Hughes'' was a finalist for the Pulitze ...

says the song's chorus, which asks, "How long must I have to wait?" emphasizes Hughes's impatience with the progress of the civil rights movement.

Sammy Price's version

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

musician

Sammy Price Samuel Blythe Price (October 6, 1908 – April 14, 1992) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. Price's playing is dark, mellow, and relaxed rather than percussive, and he was a specialist at creating the ...

remembered hearing a version of "Hesitation Blues" played by an itinerant guitarist that referenced the

Lynching of Jesse Washington Jesse Washington was a seventeen-year-old African American farmhand who was lynched in the county seat of Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of lynching. Washington was convicted of raping and murdering Lucy Fr ...

. Price lived in Waco as a child, possibly at the time of Washington's horrific death.

Versions recorded by folk song collectors

Several versions of the song, which is categorized as number 11765 in the

, were collected from traditional singers by folk song collectors.

Fiddlin' John Carson "Fiddlin'" John Carson (March 23, 1868 – December 11, 1949) was an American musician and singer who is widely considered to be one of the early pioneers of country music. Early life Carson was born near McCaysville in Fannin County, Georgia. ...

performed a variant of the song called "Nancy Rowland" in 1923.

Robert Winslow Gordon Robert Winslow Gordon (September 2, 1888 – March 26, 1961) was an American academic, known as a collector of folk songs. Gordon was educated at Harvard University. He joined the English faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in 19 ...

recorded

Bascom Lamar Lunsford Bascom Lamar Lunsford (March 21, 1882 – September 4, 1973) was a folklorist, performer of traditional Appalachian music, and lawyer from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname "Minstrel of the Appalachians". Biography ...

and a man named John G. Woody singing Hesitation Blues in the 1920s in

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

. The recording of Lunsford can be heard online.

John Lomax John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess ...

recorded

Leadbelly Huddie William Ledbetter ( ; January 1888 or 1889 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standa ...

singing a version of the song in 1935 and Smith Casey in 1939; Casey's recording is available on the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

website. Cas Wallin, one of the Wallin family of North Carolina ballad singers, was filmed in 1982 by

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music during the 20th century. He was a musician, folklorist, archivist, writer, scholar, political activ ...

(John Lomax's son) singing a version of the song which differs significantly from the popular versions.

Renditions by other artists

Artists who have recorded the song include: *

( W.C.Handy version) *

Asylum Street Spankers Asylum Street Spankers was an American acoustic blues and roots rock band from Austin, Texas, United States. The band played cover versions of early jazz and comical, often risqué original songs. In 2006, the band's satirical antiwar video "Sti ...

Barney Bigard Albany Leon "Barney" Bigard (March 3, 1906 – June 27, 1980) was an American jazz clarinetist known for his 15-year tenure with Duke Ellington. He also played tenor saxophone. Biography Bigard was born in New Orleans to Creoles of color, Cr ...

Milton Brown Milton Brown (September 8, 1903 – April 18, 1936) was an American band leader and vocalist who co-founded the genre of Western swing. His band was the first to fuse hillbilly hokum, jazz, and pop together into a unique, distinctly American ...

* Sam Collins *

Reverend Gary Davis Gary D. Davis (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), known as Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Gary Davis, was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infanc ...

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D ...

The Flatlanders The Flatlanders are an American country band from Lubbock, Texas, founded in 1972 by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. The group garnered little success during their brief original incarnation from 1972 to 1973, but when the in ...

Jerry Garcia Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...

and

David Grisman David Jay Grisman (born March 23, 1945) is an American mandolinist. His music combines bluegrass, folk, and jazz in a genre he calls "Dawg music". He founded the record label Acoustic Disc, which issues his recordings and those of other acousti ...

(The Whispering Pianist) *

Nat Gonella Nathaniel Charles Gonella (7 March 1908 – 6 August 1998) was an English jazz trumpeter, bandleader, vocalist, and mellophone, mellophonist. He founded the big band The Georgians (Nat Gonella), The Georgians, during the British dance band era ...

* W.C. Handy *

Earl Hines Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl "Fatha" Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, " ...

Hot Tuna Hot Tuna is an American blues rock band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen (guitarist/vocals) and Jack Casady (bassist). Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the ...

Jorma Kaukonen Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen Jr. (; ; born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane, and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bassist ...

* Jim Jackson *

James P. Johnson James Price Johnson (February 1, 1894 – November 17, 1955) was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key ...

Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most iconic and successful Rock music, rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and her "electric" ...

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a symmetrical pattern when viewed fro ...

Lead Belly Huddie William Ledbetter ( ; January 1888 or 1889 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the ...

* David Lindley *

Little Brother Montgomery Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery (April 18, 1906 – September 6, 1985) was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and blues pianist and singer. Largely self-taught, Montgomery was an important blues pianist with an original style. He was ...

Wingy Manone Joseph Matthews "Wingy" Manone (February 13, 1900 – July 9, 1982) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, singer, and bandleader. His recordings included " Tar Paper Stomp", "Nickel in the Slot", "Downright Disgusted Blues", "There'll Come a ...

Sara Martin Sara Martin (June 18, 1884 – May 24, 1955) was an American blues singer, in her time one of the most popular of the classic blues singers. She was billed as "The Famous Moanin' Mama" and "The Colored Sophie Tucker". She made many recordings, ...

Ralph McTell Ralph McTell (born Ralph May; 3 December 1944) is an English singer-songwriter and guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s. McTell is best known for his song " Streets of London" (1969), which ...

Dan Melchior Dan Melchior is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, often labeled a garage rock musician. He has formed the named groups of musicians Broke Revue and Dan Melchior und Das Menace. Background Melchior grew up in Shepperton, Surrey, just o ...

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe ( Lemott, later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American blues and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer of Louisiana Creole descent. Morton was jazz ...

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and activist. He was one of the main figures of the outlaw country subgenre that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restr ...

with

Asleep at the Wheel Asleep at the Wheel is an American country music, Western swing music group that was formed in Paw Paw, West Virginia, in 1970, and is based in Austin, Texas. The band has won nine Grammy Awards, released over 20 albums, and has charted more t ...

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (sometimes abbreviated NGDB), also known as the Dirt Band, is an American band founded in Long Beach, California, in 1966. Since 2018, the band has consisted of Jeff Hanna and his son Jaime Hanna, both guitarists and voc ...

Old Crow Medicine Show Old Crow Medicine Show is an Americana (music), Americana string band based in Nashville, Tennessee, that has been recording since 1998. They were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on September 17, 2013. Their ninth album, ''Remedy (Old Crow Med ...

Charlie Poole Charles Cleveland Poole (March 22, 1892 – May 21, 1931) was an American old-time music, old-time musician and leader of the North Carolina Ramblers, a string band that recorded many popular hillbilly music, hillbilly songs between 1925 and 193 ...

("If the River Was Whiskey") * The Radiators *

Patrick Sky Patrick Sky (born Patrick Linch; October 2, 1940May 26, 2021) was an American musician, folk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He was of Irish and Native American ancestry, and played Irish traditional music and uilleann pipes in the ...

* Terry St.Clair *

Steely Dan Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a traditional band lineup, Becker and Fagen cho ...

with

Marian McPartland Margaret Marian McPartland Order of the British Empire, OBE ( Turner;Hasson, Claire, . PhD Thesis. Retrieved 12 August 2008. 20 March 1918 – 20 August 2013), was an English and American jazz pianist, composer, and writer. She was the host of ...

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...

Eva Taylor Eva Taylor (January 22, 1895 — October 31, 1977) was an American blues singer and stage actress. Life and career She was born Irene Joy Gibbons in St. Louis, Missouri, as one of twelve children. On stage from the age of three, Taylor tour ...

* Dave Van Ronk * Doc and Merle Watson * Clarence Williams *

Jesse Colin Young Perry Miller (November 22, 1941 – March 16, 2025), known professionally as Jesse Colin Young, was an American singer and songwriter. He was a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s group the Youngbloods. After their dissolution in 1972, ...

(titled "Miss Hesitation") *

Justin Townes Earle Justin Townes Earle (January 4, 1982August 20, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. After his debut EP, ''Yuma'' (2007), he released eight full-length albums. He was recognized with an Americana Music Award for Emerging Artist ...

The song was sung twice by the character Putty Nose (played by

Murray Kinnell Murray Kinnell (24 July 1889 – 11 August 1954) was a British-born American actor, recognized for playing smooth, gentlemanly, although rather shady characters. He began acting on the English stage in 1907, toured in the United States from 1912 ...

) in the 1931

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

film ''

The Public Enemy ''The Public Enemy'' (''Enemies of the Public'' in the UK) is a 1931 American pre-Code gangster film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was directed by William A. Wellman, and starring James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods ...

''.

References

External links

* {{authority control 1915 songs American songs Blues songs