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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
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