Trouble in Mind
Here’s a song that grew up in the after-dark world of New Orleans at the turn of the last century. “Trouble in Mind” was written by a pioneer jazzman named Richard M. Jones, who grew in the Crescent City and, while still a teenager, was pounding piano in the houses of New Orleans’ red-light district known as Storyville. He also sometimes led a small band that included other jazz forefathers like cornet player Joe Oliver, who later would be crowned “King Oliver.” But back to the song. In the the spring of 1924 “Trouble in Mind” was among the first blues recordings ever made. But it was two years later, in 1926 in Chicago, that singer Betha “Chippie” Hill popularized it with a rendition she recorded for Okeh Records with Richard Jones on piano and another young horn man, a 25-year-old Louis Armstrong, on cornet. Since those days, this song of New Orleans has been revisited by everyone from Big Bill Broonzy to Dinah Washington and Nina Simone. Here’s the latest Flood take on the tune from a recent rehearsal.