"Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee"
Single by Stick McGhee
GenreBlues
LabelAtlantic
Songwriter(s)Stick McGhee
"Drinking Wine Spo-dee O'dee"
Single by Jerry Lee Lewis
from the album The Session...Recorded in London with Great Artists
A-side"Drinking Wine Spo-dee O'dee"
"Rock and Roll Medley"
Released1973
GenreRock 'n' roll, blues
LabelMercury
Songwriter(s)Stick McGhee
Jerry Lee Lewis singles chronology
"Meat Man" / "Just a Little Bit"
(1973)		 "Drinking Wine Spo-dee O'dee" / "Rock and Roll Medley"
(1973)		 "Sometimes a Memory Ain't Enough" / "I Think I Need to Pray"
(1973)

"Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee" is a jump blues song written by Stick McGhee and J. Mayo Williams in 1949 and originally recorded by "Sticks” McGhee & His Buddies. It became an early hit for Atlantic Records, reaching #2 on the US R&B charts.[1][2]

Background

Picardie and Wade in their book Atlantic and the Godfathers of Rock and Roll explain how the Atlantic version came to be. Stick McGhee had recorded the song in January 1947 in New Orleans for Harlem Records, a label which went out of business in 1948.[3] A distributor from New Orleans called Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records to find out if the firm could supply 5,000 copies of the song. Ertegun could not but offered to make an exact copy of the record. He first had to find someone to sing it and remembered Brownie McGhee whom Ertegun had met in his "endless trips to Harlem. I called him up and he said he could do it, but as it happened, his brother Stick was staying with him, so he might as well remake his own record." The song was recorded that same night and went on to sell 400,000 copies.[4]

1949 recordings

  • The song charted on the US R&B charts by three different artists in 1949, Stick McGhee’s version (“Stick” McGhee & His Buddies[5] reached #2, Wynonie Harris’s[6] hit #4 and Lionel Hampton went up to #13.[7]

Other recordings

Charts

Jerry Lee Lewis version

Chart (1973) Peak
position
U.S. Cash Box Country Singles[9] 21
US Hot Country Songs (Billboard)[10] 20
US Billboard Hot 100[11] 41

References

  1. ↑ R&B Box, 30 Years of Rhythm * Blues; Volume 1, Jumpin’ the Blues, 1943-1950, Rhino Records, Los Angeles, CA, 1994
  2. ↑ Gilliland, John. (197X). "Pop Chronicles 1940s Program #23 - All Tracks UNT Digital Library". Digital.library.unt.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  3. ↑ https://secondhandsongs.com/work/40946/all
  4. ↑ Picardie, Justine and Dorothy Wade, Atlantic and the Godfathers of Rock and Roll, Fourth Estate, London,1993 pp. 20-21
  5. ↑ R&B Box, 30 Years of Rhythm * Blues; Volume 1, Jumpin’ the Blues, 1943-1950, Rhino Records, Los Angeles, CA, 1994
  6. ↑ Harris, Wynonie, The Very Best of Wynonie Harris: Good Rockin’ Tonight, Gusto Records, Nashville TN, 2006
  7. ↑ Whitburn, Joel, The Billboard Book of TOP 40 R&B and Hip Hop Hits, Billboard Books, New York 2006, p. 385, p. 234, p. 231
  8. ↑ "Drinking Wine Spo-dee O'dee Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  9. ↑ George Albert (1 January 1984). The Cash Box Country Singles Charts, 1958-1982. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-1685-5.
  10. ↑ "Jerry Lee Lewis Chart History (Hot Country Songs)". Billboard.
  11. ↑ "Jerry Lee Lewis Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard.
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