Who recorded it first

Black Betty

Not a Ram Jam original — a December 1933 Library of Congress field recording of James “Iron Head” Baker

“Black Betty” is heard as a 1977 hard-rock invention, and Ram Jam did make the version everyone knows — but the first known recording of it was made on a Texas prison farm in December 1933. John and Alan Lomax captured it a cappella from the convict James “Iron Head” Baker and a group of fellow prisoners at Central State Farm, Sugar Land, and filed it with the Library of Congress; it had no label, no catalogue number and nothing to chart. The song itself is traditional, with no known author — Lead Belly, whose April 1939 Musicraft version is the usual second guess at the original, is credited alongside “Traditional” on the 1977 single. Sources differ on exactly who sang with Baker: Wikipedia names Moses “Clear Rock” Platt, while the reissue of the recording credits R.D. Allen and Will Crosby.

The record

Who recorded it first

Record
“Black Betty” — Lomax field recording
Performed by
James “Iron Head” Baker with a group of fellow prisoners
Recorded
Central State Farm, Sugar Land, Texas, December 1933
Collected by
John and Alan Lomax, for the Library of Congress — no commercial issue at the time

Released Not released, in the commercial sense. It was cut in the field in December 1933 at Central State Farm in Sugar Land, Texas, by John and Alan Lomax and deposited with the Library of Congress — no label, no catalogue number, no B-side. It reached the public only on much later compilations: Deep River of Song: Big Brazos: Texas Prison Recordings, 1933 and 1934 (2000) and Jail House Bound: John Lomax’s First Southern Prison Recordings, 1933 (2012).

Charted Did not chart — there was nothing to chart. The disc was an archive item, the performers were incarcerated men, and no copies were pressed for sale.

Hear The 1933 Lomax prison recording — unaccompanied voices, a minute and a half long, and nothing at all like the 1977 record. www.youtube.com · An auto-generated upload carrying the line “Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises,” ℗ 2012 Odyssey Productions, from Jail House Bound: John Lomax’s First Southern Prison Recordings, 1933, billed to James “Iron Head” Baker. Its running time of 88 seconds matches the 87.5-second MusicBrainz length for the 1933 field recording, so this is the archive take and not a later re-cut. Then compare Ram Jam’s 1977 Epic recording — the hard-rock arrangement that took the old work song to No. 18. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated upload on the “Ram Jam - Topic” channel, “Provided to YouTube by Epic”, “℗ 1977 Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment”, “Released on: 1977-06-20”, matching the June 1977 Epic release. Runtime 239s (3:59) against MusicBrainz Ram Jam entries for the album version at 3:56, 3:57 and 4:00 — within 2–3s. Discrepancy stated plainly: this is the full album version from Ram Jam (1977), not the ~2:26 single edit that also circulated, so it runs about ninety seconds longer than the 45 — same performance, longer outro. RamJamVEVO’s “Official Audio” upload (4cn_woPvjQI) reports the same 239s, corroborating the master.

How to check it

The December 1933 field recording at Central State Farm in Sugar Land, Texas, the further Lomax recordings of 1934, 1936 and 1939, and Lead Belly’s April 1939 Musicraft session in New York are all set out on Wikipedia ↗.

The recording entity itself — credited to James “Iron Head” Baker, 1 minute 27 seconds long, carried on Deep River of Song: Big Brazos: Texas Prison Recordings, 1933 and 1934 — is catalogued at MusicBrainz ↗.

Ram Jam’s single entered the UK chart on 10 September 1977 and peaked at No. 7 over twelve weeks, per the Official Charts Company ↗.

Baker’s and Platt’s Lomax sessions — July 1933, December 1933, May 1934 and October 1934 — are listed track by track on their joint Wikipedia article ↗, which files this song under Iron Head and group, December 1933.

Black Betty at Songs With Earlier Histories — the 1933 original and everything after it
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Fact-check

What people get wrong

Ram Jam’s single is so dominant that the song reads as a 1977 rock invention. When people do know it is older, the name they reach for is Lead Belly. Both answers are wrong about the first record.

The beliefCover

Ram Jam, 1977

Released on Epic in June 1977 backed with “I Should Have Known”; No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 7 in the UK from 10 September 1977, and No. 3 on Australia’s Kent Music Report. Wikipedia’s infobox dates the recording to February 1975, from Bill Bartlett’s earlier band Starstruck — the master is older than the band whose name is on it.

The usual second guessLater recording

Lead Belly, 1939

Lead Belly cut the commercial version in New York in April 1939 for Musicraft, as part of a medley with two other work songs, on the five-disc 78 album Negro Sinful Songs sung by Lead Belly. It is the version Bartlett worked from, and it is routinely called the original. The Lomax field recording came first, in December 1933.

The originalFirst recording

James “Iron Head” Baker with a group of fellow prisoners, December 1933

Field-recorded a cappella by John and Alan Lomax at Central State Farm, Sugar Land, Texas, for the Library of Congress. Sources differ on the rest of the group: Wikipedia’s article on the song names Moses “Clear Rock” Platt, while the reissue credits R.D. Allen and Will Crosby alongside Baker. Every source agrees Baker sang it and that this is the earliest known recording.

The writerComposition

Traditional; Huddie Ledbetter credited on the 1977 single

A traditional African American work song with no known author, notated by the Lomaxes in their 1934 book American Ballads and Folk Songs. The writing credit carried by the hit reads Traditional and Huddie Ledbetter.

Ram Jam made the version you know. The first known recording was made on a Texas prison farm in December 1933.

Context

Why a 1977 single swallowed a 1933 recording

The contest was never close, because only one side entered it. Ram Jam’s record was a product: a label, a catalogue number, a B-side, a chart position in a dozen countries and a boycott that generated its own publicity. The 1933 recording was not a release at all — it was documentation, taken down on portable equipment at a prison farm and filed with the Library of Congress, with no sleeve, no artist name on a shop rack and no way to buy it. A song only gets remembered as somebody’s if somebody’s name was printed on something.

The chain from one to the other is short and completely traceable. Iron Head and the men around him sang it for the Lomaxes; Lead Belly, close to the Lomaxes, cut a commercial version in 1939; Bill Bartlett, a guitarist coming out of the Lemon Pipers, built a hard-rock arrangement on Lead Belly’s 59-second track for his band Starstruck; and Kasenetz and Katz put that master out under a new name in 1977. Each step is a real act of arrangement, and each step also moved the credit one name further from a man whose birth year is still not settled.

The chronology, step by step
  • December 1933 — John and Alan Lomax record James “Iron Head” Baker and a group of fellow prisoners singing the song a cappella at Central State Farm, Sugar Land, Texas, for the Library of Congress.
  • 1934 — the Lomaxes publish a notated version in their book American Ballads and Folk Songs.
  • 1934, 1936 and 1939 — further Lomax field recordings of the song follow.
  • April 1939 — Lead Belly records the commercial version in New York for Musicraft, as part of a medley with two other work songs, issued on the five-disc 78 album Negro Sinful Songs sung by Lead Belly.
  • February 1975 — the date Wikipedia’s single infobox gives for the recording of the hit: Bill Bartlett, ex-Lemon Pipers, arranges Lead Belly’s 59-second version with his band Starstruck and releases it on their own TruckStar label, where it becomes a regional hit.
  • June 1977 — producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz build Ram Jam around Bartlett and Epic issues the track nationally, backed with “I Should Have Known.”
  • 10 September 1977 — the single enters the UK chart, peaking at No. 7 across twelve weeks; it reaches No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on Australia’s Kent Music Report.
  • 2000 and 2012 — the 1933 field recording is reissued on Deep River of Song: Big Brazos: Texas Prison Recordings, 1933 and 1934 and on Jail House Bound: John Lomax’s First Southern Prison Recordings, 1933, which is how it can be heard at all today.
The first version was never a release. It was documentation, filed at the Library of Congress.

The original recording artist

James “Iron Head” Baker

African American work-song singer, died 1944 · recorded the song first at Sugar Land, Texas, December 1933

Baker was serving time at the Central State Prison Farm in Sugar Land, Texas, when John Lomax — refused access to Huntsville Penitentiary — was allowed to record him and Moses “Clear Rock” Platt in 1933. He recorded for the Lomaxes across several sessions, in July and December 1933 and again in 1934, and it is the December 1933 session that produced the earliest known version of this song. Even his birth year is unsettled: Lomax described him as 63 in 1933, which puts his birth around 1870, while Wikipedia’s article on him gives 18 March 1884. He died on 23 February 1944, having never made a commercial record of the song that made other men famous.

Popularly credited as the original

Ram Jam

New York rock band, 1977-1978 · built around guitarist Bill Bartlett, formerly of the Lemon Pipers

Bill Bartlett left the bubblegum-pop Lemon Pipers to form Starstruck, taking bassist Steve Walmsley and organist Bob Nave with him, and it was there that he arranged and recorded his hard-rock reading of Lead Belly’s 59-second version, issuing it on the band’s own TruckStar label to regional success. Producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz then assembled Ram Jam in New York around Bartlett and put the track out on Epic in June 1977, where it reached No. 18 in the US and No. 7 in the UK. The NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality called for a boycott over the song’s words; the boycott failed and the record became a permanent fixture of rock radio and stadium sound systems. It is a tremendous piece of arranging, and the only thing wrong in the popular account of it is the chronology.

The songwriter

Traditional

Traditional African American work song · credited on the 1977 single as Traditional and Huddie Ledbetter

The song has no identifiable author. It circulated as an African American work song, and Alan Lomax understood the title as prison slang for the whip used on inmates, though scholars have also read it as a whiskey bottle, a prison transfer wagon or, later, a vehicle. The Lomaxes printed a notated version in their 1934 book American Ballads and Folk Songs, the year after they recorded it. Lead Belly’s name sits beside “Traditional” on the writing credit that later records carry, which is a fair description of an arranger’s share and a poor description of who invented it.