Bottle Up and Go
Encyclopedia
"Bottle Up and Go" or "Bottle It Up and Go" is a song that is a standard of the blues. Based on earlier songs, Delta bluesman Tommy McClennan
recorded "Bottle It Up and Go" in 1939. The song has been interpreted and recorded by numerous artists, sometimes using alternate titles, such as "Step It Up and Go", "Shake It Up and Go", etc. John Lee Hooker
performed it throughout his career and recorded several versions of the song.
version of "Bottle It Up and Go" was recorded by a loose musical collective led by Will Shade
and Charlie Burse
, who recorded as the Memphis Jug Band
, Picaninny Jug Band, Dixieland Jug Blowers, Dallas Jug Band, and other names. Based on a "traditional piece known in the South", it features several verses in the hokum
blues style with jug band accompaniment. A second version was recorded and released by the Memphis Jug Band in 1934 (Okeh 8959).
In 1937, John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson
recorded the song as "Got the Bottle Up and Go" (or "Got Bottle Up & Gone") (Bluebird 7012). It was performed as an early Chicago blues with Williamson on vocal and harmonica accompanied by Big Joe Williams
and Robert Lee McCoy (later known as Robert Nighthawk) on guitars. These early versions of "Bottle Up and Go" include the refrain "High-powered mama, daddy's (or papa's) got your water on".
. His version is a solo piece with McClennan on vocal and guitar and borrows lyrics from earlier songs. McClennan used verses similar to those found in "Hesitation Blues
": "Now nickel is a nickel, a dime is a dime..." and "The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas
": "Now my mama killed a chicken, she thought it was a duck, she put 'im on the table with 'is legs sticking up". He also used verses similar to those in Julius Daniels
' 1927 song "Can't Put the Bridle On That Mule This Morning" (Victor 21359-A): "Now the nigger and the white man playin' seven-up, nigger beat the white man [but he's] scared to pick it [the winnings] up". These verses have been traced back to 19th-century work songs, which were noted in a 1870s newspaper article.
McClennan, who had recently arrived in Chicago from the Delta, was cautioned by Big Bill Broonzy
about using racially loaded lyrics in northern cities. According to Broonzy, McClennan stubbornly refused to compromise, resulting in a hasty exit out a window during one performance with McClennan's smashed guitar around his neck. "McClennan, for his part, reflected pensively that they had indeed been forced to 'bottle it up and go'". When McClennan re-recorded the song as "Shake It Up and Go" in 1942, he used different lyrics.
, Hooker 'n Heat (with Canned Heat
), and Boom Boom (1992 Point Blank).
(1940), Lead Belly (1940), and Sonny Terry
and Brownie McGhee
(1942). Western swing
band Maddox Brothers and Rose
recorded it as "New Step It Up and Go" (1951). B.B. King recorded a version as "Shake It Up and Go" (1952) "although he confuses himself by saying 'bottle up and go' half the time". He later re-recorded it for the Blues on the Bayou
album (1998). The Everly Brothers
included it as "Step It Up and Go" for Instant Party!
(1962) and The Everly Brothers Reunion Concert (1983). Bob Dylan
recorded "Step It Up and Go" for Good as I Been to You
(1992).
Tommy McClennan
Tommy McClennan was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist.-Life and career:McClennan was born on a farm near Yazoo City, Mississippi, United States, and grew up in the town...
recorded "Bottle It Up and Go" in 1939. The song has been interpreted and recorded by numerous artists, sometimes using alternate titles, such as "Step It Up and Go", "Shake It Up and Go", etc. John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
performed it throughout his career and recorded several versions of the song.
Earlier songs
In 1932, a jug bandJug band
A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...
version of "Bottle It Up and Go" was recorded by a loose musical collective led by Will Shade
Will Shade
Will Shade was an African American Memphis blues musician, best known for his membership in the Memphis Jug Band. Shade was commonly called Son Brimmer, a nickname from his grandmother Annie Brimmer, because "son" is short for "grandson"...
and Charlie Burse
Charlie Burse
Charlie Burse was an African-American blues musician, best known for his skill with the ukulele. He was nicknamed "Uke Kid Burse" because of his talent, which extended to other musical instruments....
, who recorded as the Memphis Jug Band
Memphis Jug Band
The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group in the late 1920s and early to mid 1930s. The band featured harmonicas, violins, mandolins, banjos, and guitars, backed by washboards, kazoo, and jugs blown to supply the bass; they played in a variety of musical styles...
, Picaninny Jug Band, Dixieland Jug Blowers, Dallas Jug Band, and other names. Based on a "traditional piece known in the South", it features several verses in the hokum
Hokum
Hokum is a particular song type of American blues music - a humorous song which uses extended analogies or euphemistic terms to make sexual innuendos...
blues style with jug band accompaniment. A second version was recorded and released by the Memphis Jug Band in 1934 (Okeh 8959).
In 1937, John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson
Sonny Boy Williamson I
Sonny Boy Williamson was an American blues harmonica player and singer, and the first to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson.-Biography and career:...
recorded the song as "Got the Bottle Up and Go" (or "Got Bottle Up & Gone") (Bluebird 7012). It was performed as an early Chicago blues with Williamson on vocal and harmonica accompanied by Big Joe Williams
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...
and Robert Lee McCoy (later known as Robert Nighthawk) on guitars. These early versions of "Bottle Up and Go" include the refrain "High-powered mama, daddy's (or papa's) got your water on".
Tommy McClennan song
In 1939, Tommy McClennan recorded "Bottle It Up and Go" during his first recording session for Bluebird RecordsBluebird Records
Bluebird Records is a sub-label of RCA Victor Records originally created in 1932 to counter the American Record Company in the "3 records for a dollar" market. Along with ARC's Perfect Records, Melotone Records and Romeo Records, and the independent US Decca label, Bluebird became one of the best...
. His version is a solo piece with McClennan on vocal and guitar and borrows lyrics from earlier songs. McClennan used verses similar to those found in "Hesitation Blues
Hesitation Blues
"Hesitation Blues" is a popular song adapted from a traditional tune. One version was published by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham. Another was published by W.C. Handy as "Hesitating Blues." Because the tune is a traditional tune many artists have given themselves credit as...
": "Now nickel is a nickel, a dime is a dime..." and "The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas
The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas
"The Duck's Yas-Yas-Yas" or "The Duck's Yas Yas Yas" is a hokum jazz-blues song, originally recorded by James "Stump" Johnson, but the most well known version was recorded by Oliver Cobb and his Rhythm Kings....
": "Now my mama killed a chicken, she thought it was a duck, she put 'im on the table with 'is legs sticking up". He also used verses similar to those in Julius Daniels
Julius Daniels
Julius Daniels was an American Piedmont blues musician. His song "99 Year Blues" appeared on the box set Anthology of American Folk Music and has been covered by Jim Kweskin, Chris Smither, Johnny Winter, Charlie Parr and Hot Tuna on their album Burgers...
' 1927 song "Can't Put the Bridle On That Mule This Morning" (Victor 21359-A): "Now the nigger and the white man playin' seven-up, nigger beat the white man [but he's] scared to pick it [the winnings] up". These verses have been traced back to 19th-century work songs, which were noted in a 1870s newspaper article.
McClennan, who had recently arrived in Chicago from the Delta, was cautioned by Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
about using racially loaded lyrics in northern cities. According to Broonzy, McClennan stubbornly refused to compromise, resulting in a hasty exit out a window during one performance with McClennan's smashed guitar around his neck. "McClennan, for his part, reflected pensively that they had indeed been forced to 'bottle it up and go'". When McClennan re-recorded the song as "Shake It Up and Go" in 1942, he used different lyrics.
John Lee Hooker versions
During his career, John Lee Hooker recorded several adaptations of "Bottle Up and Go", usually varying the lyrics. He first recorded a solo performance as "Bundle Up and Go" in 1959 for The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker album (Riverside). Around the same time, he recorded another version as "You Gotta Shake It Up and Go", which had a group arrangement (Galaxy 716). Hooker's later versions are usually titled "Bottle Up and Go" and are included on the albums John Lee Hooker on Campus (1963 Vee-Jay), It Serves You Right to SufferIt Serves You Right to Suffer
It Serves You Right to Suffer is an album by blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Lee Hooker, released on the Impulse Records label in early 1966...
, Hooker 'n Heat (with Canned Heat
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...
), and Boom Boom (1992 Point Blank).
Other versions
Most versions of "Bottle Up and Go" recorded after Tommy McClennan's single use a combination of his verses and new lyrics. Early versions (often with a variation on the title) include those by Blind Boy FullerBlind Boy Fuller
Blind Boy Fuller was an American blues guitarist and vocalist. He was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists with rural Black Americans, a group that also included Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss.-Life and career:Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina,...
(1940), Lead Belly (1940), and Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
and Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...
(1942). Western swing
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands...
band Maddox Brothers and Rose
Maddox Brothers and Rose
The Maddox Brothers and Rose, known as America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band from the 1930s to the 1950s, consisted of four brothers, Fred, Cal, Cliff and Don Maddox, along with their sister Rose. Cliff died in 1949 and was replaced by brother Henry...
recorded it as "New Step It Up and Go" (1951). B.B. King recorded a version as "Shake It Up and Go" (1952) "although he confuses himself by saying 'bottle up and go' half the time". He later re-recorded it for the Blues on the Bayou
Blues on the Bayou
Blues on the Bayou is a 1998 studio recording by B. B. King.In the CD liner notes, B.B. King writes: "Of the many records Lucille and I have had the pleasure of recording over the years, this one is especially close to my heart. It's also one of the most relaxed and, for me, satisfying [...] No one...
album (1998). The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing...
included it as "Step It Up and Go" for Instant Party!
Instant Party!
Instant Party! is the name of an album by The Everly Brothers, originally released in 1962. It was recorded shortly after Both Sides of an Evening and it too failed to make any of the record charts.-Critical reception:...
(1962) and The Everly Brothers Reunion Concert (1983). Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
recorded "Step It Up and Go" for Good as I Been to You
Good as I Been to You
Good as I Been to You is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 28th studio album, released by Columbia Records in November 1992.It is composed entirely of traditional folk songs and covers, and is Dylan's first entirely solo, acoustic album since Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964...
(1992).