JOE STROUZER has Lead Belly’s Goodnight Irene, covered
Joe Strouzer – Goodnight Irene (July EP) is available at Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music.
by Walter Price
Everyone from Ernest Tubb, Sinatra, Tom Waites, and Ry Cooder have had their go at the 1930’s seminal folk song “Goodnight, Irene”. Popularized by the oft incarcerated and influential blues singer Lead Belly, this song is drenched in as much mystery as it is in darkness. Lovelorn and locked away, the stunning conclusion is that the storyteller would rather die by his own hands than live without his dearest…
I love Irene, God knows I do
I’ll love her till the seas run dry
And if Irene turns her back on me
I’d take morphine and die
Irene goodnight, Irene goodnight
Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
You cause me to weep, you cause me to mourn
You cause me to leave my home
But the very last words I heard her say
Was “Please sing me one more song”
This is now and UK singer-songwriter Joe Strouzer has released his earnest redux of this blues-folk staple and he’s gone with a mix of Down South front-porch folk and 1940s radio show performance. All and all, a sincere ode to a song that shaped country music and rock n roll as we know it today.
Strouzer’s version is taken from the brilliant new ‘July‘ EP and you can stream his cover as well as a Lead Belly recording, now at the GTC.
STROUZER + LEAD BELLY
Goodnight, Irene
Artist photo via Bandcamp
JULY EP:
Joe Strouzer: Vocals, Simon and Patrick Parlour guitar, Dobro,12 string Hofner guitar “Big Bertha”, banjo-mandolin “Columbina”, jug, kazoo, Suzuki and Seydel harmonicas, drums.
Mastered by Ben Capp
All songs written by Joseph Strouzer except Goodnight Irene written by Huddie Leadbetter
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“Joe Strouzer sings songs from his travels from Newcastle to New Orleans and a hell of a lot of places in between. His driving resonator guitar is coupled with true harmonica voodoo and biting songwriting of modern trouble, heart pains, moonlit trysts, drinking, and devilment, peppered with a rich history of blues.” – bio