Who recorded it first
Rollin' and Tumblin'
Not a Muddy Waters original — a 1929 Hambone Willie Newbern single for OKeh
Ask a blues listener who made “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and you will almost always get Muddy Waters, whose Chicago version arrived in 1950. The song was already twenty-one years old on record by then: Hambone Willie Newbern cut it as “Roll and Tumble Blues” in Atlanta on 14 March 1929, and OKeh issued it that year as catalogue 8679. No author was ever established for the song; Newbern took the credit on the single, and Cream still printed his name on Fresh Cream in 1966. Newbern made only six sides in his life, all at that one Atlanta session, and then vanished so completely that historians still cannot agree on the year he died.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Recorded 14 March 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia for OKeh Records and issued that year as a 10-inch shellac 78, OKeh 8679, under the title “Roll and Tumble Blues,” backed with “Nobody Knows What the Good Deacon Does.” A solo performance: Newbern’s vocal with his own slide guitar in open-G tuning.
Charted Did not chart — there was no national chart for race records in 1929, and Newbern never recorded again after this single session.
Hear Hambone Willie Newbern, “Roll and Tumble Blues (1929 Version)” — the original OKeh recording www.youtube.com · Auto-generated “Provided to YouTube by Virgin Music Group” upload on the HAMBONE WILLIE NEWBERN - Topic channel, ℗ 2004 Shanachie Ent. Corp., from the compilation Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson. Runtime 3:04 matches the 3:03 MusicBrainz recording from OKeh 8679. (The distributor’s metadata carries a stray “Writer: Robert Johnson” tag from the compilation title — the audio is Newbern’s 1929 side.)How to check it
The song’s Wikipedia entry ↗ dates the first recording to 14 March 1929 in Atlanta for OKeh and lists the writer as unknown, with Newbern credited on the single.
MusicBrainz catalogues the 1929 OKeh 8679 single ↗ with both sides, confirming the label and catalogue number.
Stefan Wirz’s Muddy Waters discography ↗ places Waters’ own version at February 1950, issued April 1950 as Aristocrat 412, and the Baby Face Leroy Trio’s at January 1950 on Parkway 501.
Cream’s Fresh Cream ↗, released 9 December 1966 on Reaction, still credits the song to Hambone Willie Newbern.
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ on WikipediaKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Setting the record straight
The confusion here is real and widespread — even listeners who know their blues name Muddy Waters as the source. He is not.
Muddy Waters
Waters recorded the song twice in 1950 — on the Parkway single credited to the Baby Face Leroy Trio in January, and under his own name in February, released as Aristocrat 412 in April. His is the definitive version, not the first.
Hambone Willie Newbern
Recorded as “Roll and Tumble Blues” in Atlanta, Georgia on 14 March 1929 for OKeh Records and issued as OKeh 8679 — solo vocal and slide guitar, one of only six sides Newbern ever made.
Unknown; Newbern credited on the single
No author was ever established. Newbern was credited on the 1929 OKeh release, and Cream still listed him as writer on Fresh Cream in 1966.
Cannon’s Jug Stompers
Their “Minglewood Blues,” credited to Noah Lewis, shares several elements and is described as the first known recording set to the melody — but it is a different song under a different title, not an earlier recording of this one.
First recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern, Atlanta, 14 March 1929, OKeh 8679. Muddy Waters made it famous in 1950.
Context
Why the 1950 record ate the 1929 one
Newbern’s OKeh 78 came out in 1929 into a race-records market that was about to be flattened by the Depression, and he never recorded again. Six sides, one afternoon in Atlanta, and then a life so undocumented that his death date is still argued over. Nothing about that release was built to survive except the song itself, which travelled the way pre-war blues actually travelled — musician to musician, not disc to disc. Sleepy John Estes said he had learned it from Newbern years before Newbern ever recorded it.
Muddy Waters, by contrast, released his version into a city with a record industry, a distribution network and an audience that would grow into the blues-rock boom. It did not even chart — Aristocrat 412 carries no chart position, and Waters would not reach the Billboard R&B listings until Louisiana Blues — but it was the version in the room when the next generation arrived. Cream put it on Fresh Cream in December 1966 and handed it to rock audiences, and by then the chain of transmission had one visible link and one invisible one.
The chronology, step by step
- 1928 — Cannon’s Jug Stompers record “Minglewood Blues,” credited to Noah Lewis, which shares several elements with the song and is described by blues historian Jas Obrecht as the first known recording set to the melody. It is a different song under a different title.
- 14 March 1929 — Hambone Willie Newbern records “Roll and Tumble Blues” in Atlanta, Georgia, for OKeh: solo voice and slide guitar. It is issued as OKeh 8679, backed with “Nobody Knows What the Good Deacon Does.”
- January 1950 — Muddy Waters plays guitar on a two-part Parkway single (Parkway 501) credited to the Baby Face Leroy Trio, with Little Walter on vocal and harmonica and Baby Face Leroy Foster on drums.
- February 1950 — Waters records his own version in Chicago with Ernest “Big” Crawford on bass; released April 1950 as Aristocrat 412, Parts 1 and 2. It did not chart.
- 9 December 1966 — Cream include the song on Fresh Cream (Reaction Records; Atco in the US, January 1967), crediting Hambone Willie Newbern as writer, and a rock audience meets it for the first time.
Six sides in one afternoon, then silence — and one of the six became a standard.