Cairo (II)

DESCRIPTION: "I would go to Cairo but the water's too high for me." "The girl I love got washed away ... swimming after me." "Cairo ... water running all over town."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Bessie Mae Smith)
KEYWORDS: death drowning river flood nonballad lover
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1927 - Mississippi River floods, devastating the Delta region and leaving thousands homeless.
FOUND IN: US(SE)
RECORDINGS:
Lil' Son Jackson, "Cairo Blues" (1960, on "Lil' Son Jackson," Arhoolie F 1004)
St. Louis Bessie (Bessie Mae Smith), "High Water Blues" (OKeh 8483, 1927)
Big Bad Smitty, "Cairo" (1991, on "Mean Disposition," Genes GCD 4128)
James "Son Ford" Thomas, "Cairo" (on USMississippi01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mighty Mississippi" (subject) and references there
NOTES [131 words]: Cairo (pronounced Kay-ro) is at the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi.
From David Evans's liner notes to USMississippi01: "[Son] Thomas's 'Cairo' is partly based on a recording made by Li'l Son Jackson in 1948, but Jackson based his song on an earlier recording of Bessie Mae Smith from 1927." - BS
From The Knickerbocker Press, Albany NY, October 4, 1927, quoting from a speech by President Coolidge: "While high water in this [Mississippi River] basin has been of constant recurrence, the rise this year [1927] was two or three feet above any other record from Cairo to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of over a thousand miles. Dikes were broken down in 145 places, submerging over 20,000 square miles, involving 174 counties in parts of seven states."
Last updated in version 5.1
File: RcCair2

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