By Tony Attwood and Aaron Galbraith
During 1978 Bob Dylan performed “She’s Love Crazy” – a Tampa Red song from 1941. In all Dylan sang it 48 times – he obviously liked it. He also dipped into “Love her with a feeling”.
Tampa Red was born Hudson Woodbridge in 1903, and was later known as Hudson Whittaker after his parents died during his childhood. He died in 1981, and was one of the great Chicago blues men.
His first step towards fame came when accompanying Ma Rainey, the lady mentioned in Tombstone Blues, and in 1928 he started recording with Georgia Tom (Thomas Dorsey) particularly with the Hokum Boys. Hokum was a form of blues that had sexually explicit lyrics and occasional rhythmic changes.
Here’s the Tampa Red Hokum Jug Band
Tampa Red then became known for a bottleneck style and was later known as The Man with the Gold Guitar.
This recording has examples of his solo guitar playing
https://youtu.be/g-5M–sc5lY
He was often recorded playing single-string runs – one of the first performers to do so.
“It hurts me too” was one of his best known songs…
And here is “She’s Love Crazy” which Dylan performed
https://youtu.be/uW1oNg51vHo
Tampa Red created a number of blues songs which became a staple part of the blues genre.
Bob Dylan performed the song in 1978 – at a time when Tampa Red was still with us – he passed away in 1981.
https://youtu.be/vjfo45qWOY8
Interestingly Dylan played about with the song on the tour, changing both the speed and the key.
https://youtu.be/JXRjPc3euEQ
As for Dylan’s tributes to him, perhaps it was an awareness of Tampa Red’s last years that caused Bob to pay an extra tribute to him.
Tampa Red’s wife died in 1953 and it is reported that after that he took heavily to drink, making his final recordings in 1960. He died destitute in Chicago at the age of 77 in March 1981.
Why does Dylan like (the series)
Untold Dylan: who we are what we do
Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan. It is simply a forum for those interested in the work of the most famous, influential and recognised popular musician and poet of our era, to read about, listen to and express their thoughts on, his lyrics and music.
We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers. Sadly no one gets paid, but if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics who teach English literature. If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.
We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with around 7000 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
You’ll find some notes about our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page of this site. You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture. Not every index is complete but I do my best.
But what is complete is our index to all the 611 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found, on the A to Z page. I’m proud of that; no one else has found that many songs with that much information. Elsewhere the songs are indexed by theme and by the date of composition. See for example Bob Dylan year by year.
We are actively promoting a link to this interesting topic on The Bob Dylan Project at:
https://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/3532/Shes-Love-Crazy
If you are interested, we are a portal to all the great information related to this topic.
Join us inside Bob Dylan Music Box.