Listening to Prestige 452: Sidney Maiden

Sidney Maiden was very lightly recorded in his lifetime, so we can thank Prestige Bluesville for this, his only LP recording. Maiden was a West Coast transplant from Louisiana who hooked up with Mississippian K. C. Douglas in Oakland, and they worked together frequently, making a few records under Douglas's name and a few under Maiden's. Their style probably reflects their adopted West Coast home more than their southern upbringing: they don't really sing or play Delta blues. With Maiden's harmonica and Douglas's guitar, their style, if anything, is more reminiscent of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, New Yorkers by way of the Piedmont country.

Douglas was reunited with Maiden for the Bluesville session, and their eclectic set includes a couple of numbers associated with Terry and McGhee, "Fox Chase" (here called "Sidney's Fox Chase") and "Sweet Little Woman."

Maiden’s song selections in general are interesting, and the credits for them are interesting too. We live in a world where any combination of notes is likely to be litigated, and any hit song will bring lawsuits out of the woodwork. This probably got started with the plagiarism suit against George Harrison for allegedly pirating the tune of the Chiffons' "He's So Fine" for his "My Sweet Lord," and it really kicked into high gear recently when the estate of Marvin Gaye won a $5.3 million lawsuit against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. Gaye's estate claimed, and a judge upheld, that Thicke/Williams's "Blurred Lines" had plagiarized Gaye's "Got to Give It Up."

There's a certain magic in the words "5.3 million dollars" that one would not find in discussions of music of a different era. Miles Davis took composer credit for a tune written by Jackie McLean, "Dig." McLean considered suing Miles, and consulted a lawyer, but the lawyer told him that even if he one, the royalties for a jazz composition would not cover the cost of the lawsuit.

So it was with the blues. Composer credit for "Sidney's Fox Chase" on the Bluesville album goes to Sidney Maiden. It's probably a tune that predates the 20th century, but it's certainly best known by Sonny Terry, and its first prominent exposure was Terry's performance of it in John Hammond's 1938 "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall. A 1944 recording gives "Arranged by Sonny Terry" in lieu of any composer credit at all. The flip side of that record is "Sweet Woman," composer credit to Sonny Terry, although it was probably composed by Terry's mentor Blind Boy Fuller, and its antecedents are likely earlier than that. Here, co-composer credit is given to Maiden and fellow Oakland resident Jesse "Lone Cat" Fuller.

In those days, songs, especially in the blues and rhythm and blues worlds, were somewhat protean, coalescing, separating and re-coalescing, with no one paying too much attention, unless by chance one flew beyond its niche audience and became a hit in the pop (white) world. Such was the case with "Earth Angel," probably written by Jesse Belvin, with parts of it lifted from other sources. "Earth Angel" became a huge national hit, enough of a moneymaker for Belvin to sue for credit, and eventually receive partial credit.

Maiden's name is on all of the songs on this album, and he likely as not did write most of them, but a few co-writing credits are interesting. "My Black Name" is credited to Sonny Boy Williamson/Sidney Maiden, but Williamson first recorded it in 1941. B. B. King would later record it, in 1964, as "I Can Hear My Name," composer B. B. King. "Sidney's Worried Life Blues," credited to Sidney and Big Maceo Merriweather, was recorded by Big Maceo in 1941, with Sidney's name nowhere near Maceo's composer credit, and the same song, as "Someday Baby Blues," written by Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon, was recorded in 1936. "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" (Sidney Maiden/Memphis Minnie) was recorded by Memphis Minnie, again in 1941, which was coincidentally around the time that Maiden arrived in Oakland and began to be exposed to a wide range of recorded blues.

All of this is interesting rather than shocking. There was no $5.3 million at stake, nothing to make it worth suing anyone for. "Worried Life Blues" and "Me and My Chauffeur Blues" did, later on, make some money for someone. "Worried Life Blues" has become one of the most recorded blues songs of all time, with versions by nearly every big name blues artists, by rhythm and blues stars like Chuck Berry and Ray Charles, even as a jazz tune by Oscar Pettiford. And then into bigger money territory when recorded by rock stars the Animals, the Blues Magoos, and Eric Clapton. Very little of which benefitted Merriweather, who died in 1953, or Maiden, whose name was only attached to his version. "Me and My Chauffeur" was recorded by Nina Simone, Big Mama Thornton, and Geoff and Maria Muldaur, among others, but its closest brush with big bucks came in a recording by an early (pre-Grace Slick) version of the Jefferson Airplane. Memphis Minnie lived to 1973, but the last 13 years of her life were confined to a nursing home after a stroke, barely getting by on social security, so it doesn't seem that she saw much from "Me and My Chauffeur."

Any blues becomes personal in the hands of a good bluesman or woman, and that's the case with all of the songs on this collection. Sidney Maiden is worth a listen.