• Gambling Woman Blues Cast
• Gambling Woman Blues Chords
• Gambling Woman Blues Lyrics
• Gambling Woman Blues Book

Eric Clapton & George Terry-guitar Freddie King-guitar & vocals Carl Radle-bass Dick Sims-keyboards Jamie Oldaker-drums. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1996 CD release of Gamblin’ Woman on Discogs. Label: Mausoleum Classix Records - 6-2. Format: CD Compilation. Country: US. Genre: Rock, Blues. Style: Blues Rock, Modern Electric Blues.

Show Notes:

Love, sex, hard times, superstition, violence and drinking are just a few of the prevalent themes found in the blues and ones we’ve explored in previous shows. This time out we dive into the myriad blues songs that deal with gambling. As usual we turn to Paul Oliver for some context, in particular his classic Blues Fell This Morning: “In the black underworld the most important members were the numbers racketeers whose success, whilst partly due to the exploitation of superstition, was primarily dependent on the widespread fondness for gambling. Of indictable offenses for which Blacks were convicted, illegal gambling provided a large proportion. It is exceedingly doubtful whether any racial group has an inherent propensity to gamble, but the black worker’s liking for betting was born of the culture which evolved from his place in the American social structure. Economic instability and low social status induced many a black man to gamble in the hope that he might better his financial position and be able to afford clothes, the Cadillac Eight and,if possible, the home, that were marks of the position to which he aspired in a society where status was, and is, measured in terms of propensity rather than culture. …Playing his hand, staking his chips, rolling his dice, the gambler gained the thrills that his work did not afford him.” Card games like poker and more exclusively black games like Coon-Can and Georgia Skin, and certain favored cards like the Jack of Diamonds are the subject of many blues songs. In addition to cards, shooting dice was very popular based on the large number of blues songs on the topic. Another extremely popular form of gambling was playing the numbers or playing Policy, which was the subject of many blues songs. Policy involved placing bets on combinations of numbers, generally in groups of three, with the chance to win large amounts by placing small bets but the odds of winning were slim. Many songs invariably dealt with losing ones money heard in phrases such as “All my money gone” or the familiar song line “When you lose your money, please don’t lose your mind.” There were also clusters of related songs about the “Gamblin’ Man” (sometimes woman), which also had a counterpart in religious song, songs such as “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” and “I Got Mine” both of which have a long recorded histories. We spin a wide variety of these gambling songs over the course of two shows, from both the pre-war and post-war era.

We open things up with “Blues For Gamblers” and “Policy Game” by Lightnin’ Hopkins and friends. On July 6th, 1960 Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Big Joe Williams were brought together in a Los Angeles studio to record an album, Down South Summit Meetin’. It was an opportunity of sheer fate — Sonny and Brownie were finishing up an engagement at the Ash Grove, and Big Joe Williams, an intrepid wanderer, was there to take over for them. Lightnin’ Hopkins, who rarely enjoyed leaving the confines of his beloved Houston, was passing through town on his way to a music festival. Rehearsals were held one evening, and studio time was booked the following day. After completing six titles that make up Down South Summit Meetin’ on the World Pacific label, further recordings were made, but quite curiously, no one seems to remember making them. Whether they were recorded live at the Ash Grove, or were further studio recordings made the same day, no one knows. Nevertheless, the magic continued, and by the time it was all over, nearly a dozen titles were captured (some have theorized that the audience applause heard on these additional recordings was overdubbed at a later date). Lightnin’ seemed to know firsthand a thing or two about gambling as evidenced in his recordings like “Policy Game”, “One Was a Gambler”, “That Gambling Life”, “Racetrack Blues” among others.

In addition to Lightnin’s song, we spin several songs dealing with Policy such as Bumble Bee Slim’s “Policy Dream Blues”, Kokomo Arnold’s “Policy Wheel Blues”, John Lee Hooker’s “Playin’ The Races”, Sparks Brothers’ “4-11-44” and Papa Charlie Jackson’s “Four Eleven Forty Four.” Policy, also called playing the numbers or playing the races, had players bet that certain numbers would be picked from a wheel that was spun each evening. The name “Policy” came from the coded question bookies or “numbers runners” asked when collecting bets: “Would you like to take out an insurance policy? (this is the subject of Smith and Harper’s “Insurance Policy Blues”)” Shops took bets as low as one cent and people from all walks of life would regularly select a three-digit number, or gig, and place a bet with a their bookie. Gamblers searched their dreams for signs they looked up in “dream books” like Aunt Sally’s Policy Players Dream Book to try to predict winning numbers. Popular combinations like 4-11-44 and 3-6-9 appear in several blues songs such as the one Papa Charlie Jackson sings:

I went to the wheel, they wouldn’t let me in
I stood on the steps, cried out in the wind
“Mr. Man, Mr. Man, please open the door
I want to play four eleven forty-four”

One popular method of selecting numbers to play in a policy game was using the interpretation of dreams referred to in Tommy Griffin’s “Dream Book Blues” and Bumble Bee Slim’s “Policy Dream Blues.” Players consulted policy dream books to provide them with the lucky numbers their dreams suggested. Paul Oliver noted that these dream-books “…were compilations of words and names for people, animals, objects, events-anything, in fact, that might have significance for the gambler, especially when it came to him in a dream.” There we numerous dream-books like the popular Aunt Sally’s Policy Players Dream Book and Pick ‘Em Dream Book. Policy bets were placed on groups of numbers from 1 through 78. Winning policy bets were selected several times a day, when those who ran the game spun a large wheel and “the numbers fell.” Artists such as Jim Jackson, Elzadie Robinson, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Gabriel Brown, Kokomo Arnold, Blind Blake, Bo Carter, John Lee Hooker and others all wrote songs about Policy. Blues and the Poetic Spirit Paul Garon writes: “It was left to Freud to enlighten those intellectuals who scoffed at the lower classes for consulting their dream-books. The intellectuals were the fools, for dream did have meaning-as for the dream-books, they were indeed unscientific but as Freud suggested, they were one of ‘those not infrequent cases in which and ancient and jealously held popular belief seems to be nearer the truth than the judgment of the prevalent science of today.’”

Georgia Skin is a black card game fashionable among levee, lumber, and turpentine workers, perhaps because such figures were periodically flush with money. In a prevalent version of Georgia Skin, the dealer charges the other players an arbitrary amount to draw a single card from his deck. After the players bet various sums, the dealer turns a card; if none of the previously dealt cards (known as “fall cards”) match it, the dealer wins the bets. Jelly Roll Morton said of it: “Of all the games I’ve ever seen, no game has so many cheats rightin front of your eyes…” To “carry a cub” was a dealer’s method of cheating at Georgia Skin by concealing the three cards that match his own at the bottom of a deck, so that they will not be dealt to other players. Artists who referenced the game in song include Peg Leg Howell, Blind Willie Reynolds, Bukka White, Bo Carter, Ollis Martin, Lucille Bogan among others. In “Georgia Skin” Memphis Minnie sings:

The reason I like the game, the game they call Georgia Skin (2x)
Because when you fall, you can really take out again

When you lose your money, please don’t lose your mind (2x)
Because each and every gambler gets in hard luck sometime

Coon Can was a A popular barrelhouse card game involving two players, each of whom was dealt ten or (more often) eleven cards. The object of the game was to “get out”; i.e., dispose of one’s cards by putting them in combinations. Permissible combinations included a straight flush of ten cards, two four of a kind, and one two (or three) of a kind, or straights of three or more cards in the same suit.The player laid his combinations face up and could draw cards from the remaining deck in order to complete them, discarding one of his own cards as he did so. His opponent could use any discarded card for his own combinations or could “hit” the other player’s combinations with his own matching cards, which entitled him to dispose of another card. The first player to dispose of his entire hand won the game; if neither player “got out” after going through the deck, the outcome was called a tab, in which case the game would continue with the stakes doubled. The game is referenced in songs such as Tommy McClennan’s “Bottle It Up And Go”, Charlie Patton’s “Jim Lee Blues” Part One, ”Dad Nelson’s “Coon Can Blues” and Red Nelson’s “Gambling Man” In Peetie Wheatstraw’s “Coon Can Shorty” he boasts:

Well now, they call me Coon Can Shorty, he man from Coon Can Land (2x)
Well, I know I will play with any man, ooh well, well the game they call Coon Can

Gambling Woman Blues Cast

“Jack of Diamonds” (a.k.a. Jack o’ Diamonds and Jack of Diamonds (Is a Hard Card to Play) is a Texas gambling song that was popularized by Blind Lemon Jefferson who recorded the song in 1926. Those who recorded versions include Sippie Wallace, Pete Harris, Smith Casey, Jesse Thomas, Mance Lipscomb, Henry Townsend among others.

Gambling Woman Blues Chords

Paul Oliver notes that “apart from gambling with cards, the gambling black workers like best to ‘Roll the Bones’ – to shoot craps with dice. The game is simple and can be virtually interminable , and other names by which it is known – Memphis Domino or Mississippi Marbles – are evidence of its popularity in the South. The crap shooters ‘lay their money on the wood to make betting good,’ and ‘keep it in sight to save a fight’ – staking their bets on the throw of the dice. Best numbers are seven and eleven, the worst throws are two, three, and twelve, when ‘up jumps the devil.'” Shooting dice or craps appear in many blues songs such as Jazz Gillum’s “Roll Dem Bones”, “Shootin’ Craps & Gamblin'” (unknown artist recorded by Lawrence Gellert), George “Big Boy” Owens’ “The Coon Crap Game”, Mandy Lee’s “Crap Shootin’ Papa, Mama Done Caught Your Dice”, Mississippi Sheiks’ “Shooting High Dice”, Georgia Tom & Tampa Red’s “The Alley Crap Game”, Peetie Wheatstraw’s “Crapshooters Blues”, Walter Roland’s “Dice’s Blues”, Clifford Gibson’s “Bad Luck Dice”, Big Chief Ellis’ “Dices, Dices”, Sticks McGee’s “Whiskey, Women And Loaded Dice”, Smoky Babe’s “Your Dice Won’t Pass” among many others. In “Dice’s Blues” Bob Campbell likely spoke for many a crap shooter:

I said dices oh dices please don’t you three on me
I’m just as broke and hungry as any gambler can be

One of the more prevalent gambling songs is “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues.” It was first recorded by Martha Copeland in 1927 for Victor. In the following month Mamie McKinney cut her version with Porter Grainger on piano but it remains unissued. Viola McCoy recorded “Dyin’ Crap Shooter Blues” in late August with a similar line-up to Martha Copeland. The following month Rosa Henderson put out her version accompanied by Cliff Jackson on piano; and remained the last recording of this particular blues until November 1940 in Atlanta when Blind Willie McTell recorded a version for the library of Congress where he states “I am gonna play this song that I made myself, originally this is from Atlanta.” He recorded the song again for Atlantic in 1949 and a final version in 1956, his last recording.” “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” has also been linked to “St James Infirmary Blues” which has also been recorded as “Gambler’s Blues.” The Hokum Boys recorded “Gamblers Blues (St. James Infirmary Blues)” in 1929 and Mattie Hite cut “St. Joe’s Infirmary (Those Gambler’s Blues)” in 1930. There was also the related song “Dying Gambler” which Blind Willie cut in 1935, Bessie Smith cut “Dying Gamblers Blues” in 1924 and Rev. J. M. Gates recorded the sermon “Dying Gambler” in 1927. John D. Twitty’s “Death Of The Gambler”, heard today, seems to be related to this cluster of songs.

The original “I Got Mine” was a ‘coon song’ from 1901. It was written by a white writer from New Orleans, a traveling show entertainer by the name of John Queen, and the music was by Charles Cartwell. Before 1910, Howard Odum described “a version of a once popular song ‘I Got Mine’ [which] has been adapted by the Negro and is sung with hilarity.” It must have entered the tradition fairly quickly – Newman White published several examples: collected in Choctaw Co, Alabama, from “a Negro guitar picker”; in Campbell Co, Georgia, “as sung by an old Negro cook (male)”; in northern Alabama as “sung on a road working camp” between 1915 and 1916; and in Durham, NC, in 1919 from “a Negro minstrel show.” The first black recorded version was in October 1926 by ‘Big Boy’ George Owens under the title “The Coon Crap Game.” Paul Oliver notes that most of the recorded versions kept fairly closely to Queen’s lyrics, but “they generally expanded the themes using the original framework. …The point of most of the verses is that the singer wins, even if it is by beating a hasty exit, by cheating or by scooping up the stakes, or by making an undignified departure through the window; he looks after his own interests first. Retribution generally follows at least once and ‘I got mine’ means a beating up or a sentence, dealt with humorously and ruefully. It was a song which used a familiar minstrel show situation but allowed for amusing variations, effective with both white and coloured audiences, who doubtless interpreted the shades of meaning rather differently.” The song was recorded by Frank Stokes in 1928 and in 1950 and 1962 by Pink Anderson. The song was recorded by numerous old-timey artists, including Fiddlin’ John Carson who cut a version for Okeh in March 1924

Gambling, in particular cards, has also been used in numerous blues songs as a metaphor for life, love life, fate, good luck or bad luck. A few songs in that vein include Butterbeans & Susie’s “Deal Yourself Another Hand” with Butter dressing down Susie using all the cards in the deck, Big Walter Horton & Alfred Harris’ “Card Game”, Big Joe Turner “Life Is Just A Card Game”, Memphis Minnie’s “Turn The Card”, and Tampa Red’s “Keep On Dealin’ (Play Your Hand)”, the latter using phrases that would appear in numerous songs such as “Let the deal go down” or “Never let the deal go down.” Billy Wright’s “Stacked Deck” (covered by Mercy Baby as “Marked Deck”) uses the card metaphor to call out his woman in a similar way Butterbeans did to his woman:

Gambling Woman Blues Lyrics

Well the Jack he’s your lover, and you’re using me for a goat
Queen that’s you Pretty Mama and you’re trying to cut my throat
Whoa, but the King that’s me, Lord and I’m about to wear my crown
So be careful Pretty Baby, you ain’t dead when the deal goes down

Gambling Woman Blues Book

Other artists associated themselves with prominent cards such as B. K. Turner who went by the name Black Ace and in his signature song sang “I am the boss card in your hand” and Peetie Wheatstraw’s calling himself the “King of Spades.”