"Early in the Morning" (sometimes called "'Bout the Break of Day") is a blues song that was recorded by 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:...

 in 1937. Identified as a blues standard, it was inspired by earlier blues songs. "Early in the Morning" has been recorded by numerous musicians, including Junior Wells

Junior Wells

Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...

, who made it part of his repertoire.

Origins

Charlie Spand

Charlie Spand

Charlie Spand was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer, noted for his barrelhouse style. Spand was deemed one of the most influential piano players of the 1920s. Little is known of his life outside of music, and his total recordings comprise only thirty three...

 recorded "Soon This Morning" June 6, 1929 (Paramount 12760). The song features Spand's vocal and piano and opens:

It's early in the mornin' 'bout the break of day

My head on the pillow where my mama used to lay...

Spand subsequently recorded several versions of "Soon This Morning". Several other bluesmen also recorded versions of the song, often varying the lyrics. Some early versions include 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...

's "At the Break of Day" (1934 Bluebird 5571), Walter Roland

Walter Roland

Walter Roland was an American blues, boogie-woogie and jazz pianist, guitarist and singer, noted for his association with Lucille Bogan, Josh White and Sonny Scott. Music journalist, Gérard Herzhaft, stated that Roland was "a great piano player.....

's "Early This Morning" (1934 Banner 33343), Jimmie Gordon's "Soon in the Morning" (1935 Decca 7099), Bill Gaither's "Bout the Break of Day" (1936 Decca 7404 as "Leroy's Buddy"), Speckled Red

Speckled Red

Speckled Red was born Rufus Perryman in Monroe, Louisiana. He was an American blues and boogie-woogie piano player and singer, most noted for his recordings of "The Dirty Dozens", with exchanges of insults and vulgar remarks that have long been a part of African American folklore.The family moved...

's "Early in the Morning" (1938 Bluebird 8069), and Washboard Sam

Washboard Sam

Robert Brown , known professionally as Washboard Sam, was an American blues singer and musician.-Biography:...

's "So Early in the Morning" (1939 Bluebird 8358).

Sonny Boy Williamson I song

Sonny Boy Williamson recorded "Early in the Morning" in 1937. The song is a medium-tempo twelve-bar blues that features Williamson's vocal and harmonica accompanied by Robert Lee McCoy (later known as Robert Nighthawk) and Henry Townsend

Henry Townsend (musician)

Henry 'Mule' Townsend was an American blues singer, guitarist and pianist.-Career:Townsend was born in Shelby, Mississippi and grew up in Cairo, Illinois. He left home at the age of nine because of an abusive father and hoboed his way to St. Louis, Missouri...

 on guitars. He incorporated his signature "call-and-response style of alternating vocal passages with pungent harmonica blasts" that became a fundamental of blues harmonica. Williamson's chorus uses lyrics similar to the earlier songs:

You tell me 'Come early in the mornin', baby 'bout the break of day'

Now ya oughta see me grab the pillow where my baby used to lay

Williamson's "Early in the Morning" (and the other early versions of the song) was released before blues songs were tracked by record industry trade magazines such as Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

. When he re-recorded the song in 1945, it did not appear in the R&B chart.

Junior Wells versions

Chicago blues harmonica player Junior Wells recorded several versions of "Early in the Morning" during his career. He first recorded it in 1954 for States Records

States Records

States Record Company was a Chicago-based record label. A subsidiary of United Records, it was in business from May 1952 to December 1957. States focused on rhythm and blues, jazz, and gospel....

 (S-139), while he claimed he was AWOL from the U.S. Army. Titled "'Bout the Break of Day", Wells added several verses which have been used in subsequent versions of the song by other artists. Backing Wells (vocal and harmonica) are Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...

 and Louis Myers

The Aces (blues band)

The Aces was one of the earliest and most influential of the electric Chicago blues band in the 1950s. Led by the guitarist brothers Louis and Dave Myers, natives of Byhalia, Mississippi, the brothers originally performed under the name The Little Boys; with the subsequent addition of harmonica...

 (guitars), Otis Spann

Otis Spann

Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....

 (piano), Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

 (bass), and Fred Below

Fred Below

Fred Below was a leading blues drummer, best known for his innovative work with Little Walter and Chess Records in the 1950s. Nobody laid more of the Chicago blues rhythmic foundations, particularly its archetypal backbeat, than Fred Below.-Career:He was born in Chicago, and started playing drums...

 (drums). In 1965, he recorded two versions of the song with Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

—a live recording at Pepper's Lounge in Chicago from It's My Life, Baby! (Vanguard) and a studio recording for the influential Hoodoo Man Blues

Hoodoo Man Blues

Hoodoo Man Blues is the 1965 debut album of blues vocalist and harmonica player Junior Wells, performing with the Junior Wells' Chicago Blues Band, an early collaboration with Grammy Award-winning artist Buddy Guy...

album.

Other versions

Many artists have recorded their interpretations of "Early in the Morning", including Tampa Red

Tampa Red

Tampa Red , born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an American Chicago blues musician....

 (1951); Muddy Waters (1963) later released on One More Mile (1994); Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage...

 from Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band

Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band

Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band is the 1966 or 1967 debut album of American blues-harp musician Charlie Musselwhite, leading Charlie Musselwhite's Southside Band. The Vanguard Records release brought Musselwhite to notability among blues musicians and also helped bridge...

(1967); and B.B. King with Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

 from B. B. King & Friends: 80 (2005). Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

 recorded three versions of "Early in the Morning": a studio version from Backless

Backless

Backless is an album by blues rocker Eric Clapton, released in 1978. The album reached #8 on the pop charts. While the single "Promises" only reached #37 in the UK, it was a much bigger success in the US, reaching #9 on the Billboard charts....

(1978) and live versions from Crossroads 2: Live in the Seventies

Crossroads 2: Live in the Seventies

Crossroads 2: Live in the Seventies is a box set by Eric Clapton, released in 1996. Unlike the first Crossroads box set that encompasses more than three decades of Clapton's work, Crossroads 2 is a chronicle of Clapton's live shows between 1974 through 1978...

(1978, released 1996) and Just One Night

Just One Night (Eric Clapton album)

Just One Night is a live double album by blues rocker Eric Clapton, released in 1980. It was recorded live at the Budokan Theatre, Tokyo, December 1979 when Clapton was touring with his last record, Backless. The sleeve contains a Japanese painting by Ken Konno...

(1980).