"Motherless Child Blues" (or, in dialect, "Motherless Chile Blues") is the name of two distinctly different traditional blues songs. They are different melodically and lyrically. One was first popularized by Robert "Barbecue Bob" Hicks

Barbecue Bob

Robert Hicks, better known as Barbecue Bob was an early American Piedmont blues musician. His nickname came from the fact that he was a cook in a barbecue restaurant. One of the two extant photographs of Bob show him playing his guitar while wearing a full length white apron and cook's hat.-Early...

—the other by Elvie Thomas

Elvie Thomas

Elvie Thomas was an American country blues singer and guitarist, probably from Palmer's Crossing, Mississippi, 10 miles from Hattiesburg, United States. She recorded two known songs in Grafton, Wisconsin, for Paramount Records in March 1930, with Geeshie Wiley on second guitar...

.

"Motherless Child Blues" (Hicks)

The "Motherless Child Blues" recorded by Hicks in 1927 tells of the singer's lack of respect for, and disenchantment with, women in general. The song begins with the lyrics that give it its name:

If I mistreat you gal, I sure don't mean you no harm.

I'm a motherless child and I don't know right from wrong.

This song was later adapted by 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...

 on his album From the Cradle

From the Cradle

From the Cradle is a blues cover album by Eric Clapton. Released on 13 September 1994 by Reprise Records, the album was Eric Clapton's long awaited follow-up to his massively-successful live album, Unplugged...

and retitled "Motherless Child".

This song has also been performed by octogenarian jazz legend Jimmy Scott

Jimmy Scott

Jimmy Scott , aka "Little" Jimmy Scott, is an American jazz vocalist famous for his unusually high contralto voice which is due to Kallmann's syndrome, a very rare genetic condition. The condition stunted his growth at four feet eleven inches until, at age 37, he grew another 8 inches to the...

 and in a drum n' bass re-working by Scottish electronic artist Colin Waterson

Colin Waterson

Waterson is a Scottish electronic musician.-Dance career:Waterson performed all over the world as a dancer, most famously as a member of Matthew Bourne's theatre company New Adventures, where he created roles in productions of Swan Lake as well Cinderella Waterson (born Colin Ross Waterson, 5...

.

"Motherless Child Blues" (Thomas)

Elvie Thomas first recorded her "Motherless Child Blues" with Geeshie Wiley

Geeshie Wiley

Geeshie Wiley was an American female blues singer and guitar player. She recorded three records in the early 1930s...

in 1930. This song tells of a daughter not following her dead mother's advice:

Mother told me just before she died,

...

Oh daughter, Oh daughter, please don't be like me,

To fall in love with every man you see.

Odetta recorded Motherless Child see http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8i4pk_odetta-memorial-motherless-child-we_music