THE SEVENTH SON
“The Seventh Son”, also recorded as “Seventh Son”, is a song written by Willie Dixon. It was released as a single by Willie Mabon on Chess Records in 1955. Johnny Rivers recorded his version of “The Seventh Son” supposedly at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood, California and released it on Meanwhile Back at the Whisky à Go Go in 1965 and released it as a single. Most, if not all, of these ‘live’ Whisky tracks were studio recordings with audience noise added, however. The single version of the song peaked at #7 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 singles chart. Johnny Rivers’ version also topped RPM magazine’s Top Singles chart. (More from Wikipedia)
The Soul Agents released their second single on October 15, 1964, also on Pye Records; the band picked two other traditional songs for this 45, “The Seventh Son” b/w “Let’s Make it Pretty Baby”. “The Seventh Son” was a Top Ten hit song for Johnny Rivers in 1965, and “seventh son” is mentioned in numerous other songs as well, such as Roger Miller’s “Dang Me”: “I’m the seventh out of seven sons / My pappy was a pistol, I’m a son of a gun”.
(May 2014)
