TB BLUES
Huddy Ledbetter


TB Blues    Trk 5    Disc 2     
Huddie Ledbetter - vocal & guitar
Album: The Essential by Allegro Classic Blues




Spoken:


Now this is the TB Blues. 
The first girl ever had the TB, she died.
And the woman have one child in world and that
was her girl. And she run with twenty-five or thirty mens and
the man she loved best is one was a sweetback man he was
dressed up all the time. But the men that wore *overhauls, she
wouldn't take a dime from them. Asked that man for one dime. 
And while she was sick that worried her to death over that man 
didn't have no dime. And she was gettin' to sing the TB blues.
In them times ev'rybody have the TB, died.
And hear what she tell her mother ev'rytime her mother
come 'round to her bed she look in her face, and here what she said:


It's too late, too late
Too late, too late, too late
It's too late, too late, too late
Too late, too late
I'm on my way to Denver
And mama must I hesitate


TB's alright to have it here
Friend just treat ya's so low down
TB's alright to have it here
Friends just treat you so low down
Don't you ask 'em for no favors
They'll even stop a- comin' around


Mmm, this TB is killin' me
Mmm, this TB is killin' me
My mama like a prisoner
Always a-working the streets


Well, I'm on-on-on my feet
Couldn't ev' much walk down the street
But the mens are lookin' at me
>From my head to my feet
But they's dead now, this TB is killin me
You're better buried or in the deep blue sea


Mmm-mmm
Mmm-mm-mm
I got a tuberculosis 
Consuption is killing me.




*same as overalls








(Contributed by awcantor - March 2008)