Deep River Blues
- Þorkell Daníel Jónsson
- Apr 22, 2019
- 2 min read
Author of the song and lyrics is unknown
The year of 2018 was the year of the rain and I am suffering from severe rain blues. It rained over 260 days in the southwest of the country last year. Towards the end of the year, our basement flooded with associated damage. Today is the first day of summer and the weather is beautiful, the spring has been wet though. So it's fitting that the first song I learned to play the guitar in the new year is a rain blues.
The lyrics of the song Deep River Blues are about a man's desperation due to flooding in a nearby river following the rainy season and the trouble caused by the flooding. I was curious about when the song was written and what motivated it. I can't say I've found conclusive information about this. First, I found a text about the trigger being a devastating flood in the Mississippi River in 1927. During these floods, dams broke and the river flooded over 60 thousand square kilometers. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes and over 250 people died. The Delmore brothers recorded the song in 1933 under the name Big River Blues. They say they wrote it, but it is not certain that this is true. The song may well have been written under the influence of the Mississippi Flood disaster. Still, there is að reference in the lyrics to the town, Muscle Sholes and that town stands by the Tennessy River. That's why I now think it's more likely that the Tennessee River was the trigger.
I came across the song in the December 2011 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine. There is an arrangement in it made and published by Doc Watson in 1964. In an interview, Watson said he first heard the song performed by the Delmore brothers and was impressed. But he couldn't make the song sound good enough with one guitar. Not until he discovered Travis picking when he heard Merle play and his thumb kept running between the bass notes. Watson said he practiced it for ten years and then added the melody. He's probably exaggerating there. Watson plays the song with his thumb and one finger but suggests that it makes more sense to use all your fingers. He also recommends damping the bass strings. I don't because I'd have to practice for ten years to make it sound decent.
You can find lots of videos online where guitarists struggle to play the song. There is no wonder why so many try to play it because it is fun to play it. One of them is Australian guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel. His version is below the video where I play the Doc Watson´s arrangement.
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