Hey, I found a few quiet moments to play with the webcam this week, so I’m posting one of the results. This is an old tune called “Come Back Baby,” & the version I’m most familiar with is Dave Van Ronk’s; the song has also been recorded by artists ranging from Lightnin’ Hopkins to Hot Tuna & Ray Charles to Carolyn Hester. Blogger Eli Marcus tracked the song back to a 1940 recording by one Walter Davis, & conjectured this may be (Marcus’ words) “the earliest and possibly the original version of the song,” but he also conjectured that it could date from “much earlier,” which seems a very plausible guess. Guitarist Happy Traum wrote that “the song has a ring of truth to it.” I agree with that. It also has a somewhat unusual chord change (at least in the blues context)—in the key of E, the song moves about halfway thru from an A7 chord to a C7 chord, while in more typical blues it would stay on the A.
At any rate, it’s a song that really gets me inside. & while it’s not up there with the recordings of this song mentioned in the opening paragraph, hope you enjoy the following version.