Mojo Filter wrote:The picture looks pre MGM, a very early portrait. Sterling publicity shot?
I agree. This could date from the Sterling days. "Move It On Over" was of course his first M-G-M single, so they could well have been using an older shot for that sheet music. I will look into that when I have the time.
Mojo Filter wrote:Yes, I did notice the crediting on "Lovesick Blues", but for some reason didn't say anything about it myself. The song itself is Hank's biggest seller, i think, and he didn't write it - though he wrote a lot better songs than that but none of them matched the "Lovesick Blues" sales. That is until "Your Cheatin' Heart" came out, but Hank never lived to see it's success.
Yes, it's ironic that such a prolific and high-quality writer as Hank should have his signature song written by somebody else. He was "the ol' Lovesick Blues boy" until the day he died. And beyond.
Here's one of the first versions of "Lovesick Blues", as recorded by Emmett Miller and his Georgia Crackers for OKeh in 1925. This early version (Miller would re-record the tune a few years later) features the work of, among others, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70nPDSmrH6E
Hank was more directly inspired by this version done by Rex Griffin in 1939 for Decca. The whole performance and the structure of the song are nearly identical to Hank's M-G-M cut, although a few lyrical variations suggest Williams must also have known Miller's recording. This one was done over nine years before Hank's - the label read "The Lovesick Blues" :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3hStzw4oH8