Page 30 - BiTS_09_SEPTEMBER_2025
P. 30
Interestingly, one verse has a direct reference to homosexuality:
Well I know a little boy, said he don’t like girls.
Painted face, wore his hair all curled.
Two years later, Big John Greer produced a Rhythm & Blues rendition of the song.
Big-John-Greer-Clip
It’s ‘Bottle It Up And Go” again, this time, with Arkansas-born
Greer contributing forceful tenor sax and vocals. It contains
the three, ‘stock’ verses (Grandma, nickels, chickens).
He complains that he, “Need no girl if she wants wine” which
is ironic as he died from alcoholism. Perhaps he wanted the
wi ne for himself?
B.B. King got in on the act in 1952, with ‘Shake It Up And Go’.
BB-King-Clip
There are only three vocal verses, and two of them are
‘standard’. Mr King slips into “bottle up and go” on all of them.
In the same year, in California, Little Willie Cotton recorded a
stylistically similar, but lyrically different cut.
Little-Willie-Cotton
He sings four verses. This is is the first:
Well I had a little girl, she little and low.
She used to love me, but she don’t no more.
She shook it up and go X2
Well she shook it up and go, boys, she shook it up and go.
It does share a verse with the Blind Boy Fuller take:
Well the front door shut, back door too.
Blinds pulled down, what you gonna do.
In 1961 Dr Harry Oster recorded Snooks Eaglin in New Orleans, for
Prestige/Bluesville.
Snooks-Eaglin-Clip
Eaglin was born in The Crescent City in 1936, and he was a
sophisticated and accomplished urban Blues musician who
contributed superb electric guitar to many recordings. I
suspect Dr Oster may have encouraged him to play acoustic to
better fit the folk aesthetic. Either way, his 12-string sounds

