Monday Morning Blues
A song, a history.
It Hurts Me Too is one of the most recorded Blues songs. Done and redon and covered and reimagined it was written and first performed by Tampa Red in 1940. You would think the story starts then but you would be wrong.
The song is based on "Things 'Bout Comin' My Way" also recorded by Tampa Red in 1931. However, he wasn't the first - Walter Vinson had covered the song a little earlier. Walter's version was based on the song he had done with the Mississippi Sheiks in 1930.
That song was "Sitting On Top Of The World" made famous to rock audiences by Cream. The melody of that song, which is what Walter was playing was taken from Tampa Red's 1929 recording of "You Got to Reap What You Sow" which Red had taken from the 1928 record of the same by Leroy Carr with, you guessed it, Tampa Red on guitar.
So now we have all the ways that Tampa Red was involved with the history of "It Hurts Me Too" but he wasn't finished. In 1949 he rewrote the song in Chicago Blues style and redid the backing calling it "When Things Go Wrong with You". The song made it to #9 on the 1949 R&B chart.
The song was covered many times before 1957 when Elmore James rewrote some of the lyrics combining the 2 songs together and recorded it in the version we know today. It didn't chart.
Five years later he recorded it again and this time it took off. Same lyrics but this time with more of Elmore's slide work.
If you want to listen to all the variations they might all be on YouTube but here is the original 1940, Elmore's 1963 and the Dead.