CORRINA, CORRINA
“Corrine, Corrina” (sometimes “Corrina, Corrina”) is a 12-bar country blues song in the AAB form. “Corrine, Corrina” was first recorded by Bo Carter (Brunswick 7080, December 1928). However, it was not copyrighted until 1932 by Armenter “Bo Carter” Chatmon and his publishers, Mitchell Parish and J. Mayo Williams. “Corrine, Corrina” entered the folk-like acoustical tradition during the American folk music revival of the 1960s when Bob Dylan began playing a version he titled “Corrina, Corrina”. Although his blues based version contains lyrics and song structure from “Corrine, Corrina”, his melody is lifted from “Stones in My Passway” (Vocalion 3723) recorded by Robert Johnson in 1937. (More from Wikipedia)
Legend has it that Bob Dylan wrote “Mixed Up Confusion” on the way to the recording session, and the single was recorded on November 14, 1962 with an electric band: three guitars (including Dylan’s), bass, drums, and a lively piano. “Mixed Up Confusion” was omitted from both versions of his second, much more successful album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan; interestingly, the “B” side was “Corrina, Corrina”, the only song on the album that Bob Dylan didn’t write (another was co-written).
(June 2013/2)
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The first cut, “Mixed Up Confusion” was my introduction to Bob Dylan’s very first 45, as I have written about previously. With Dylan backed by an electric band, the song dates from November 1962 and was released on December 14, 1962 – 6 months before Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan came out, and fully 2½ years before the electric Dylan hit with full force on “Like a Rolling Stone” – but it was almost immediately pulled from the market and is now a great rarity. The flip side of this single, and the only song that I recognized on John Birch Society Blues was “Corrina, Corrina”; an alternative take of the song was included on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, but I had heard the song previously before I heard it there, by somebody somewhere. Wikipedia lists so many recorded versions of “Corrina, Corrina” that I have no idea which one it was; probably it was the Ray Peterson recording of “Corrina, Corrina” in 1960 that made it to #9 on Billboard Hot 100.
(September 2017)
