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Bicycles & College Radio in Cleveland
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Tag Archives: Black Betty
Digital picks via the Lemon Pipers
January 29, 2012
Posted by on So as I was pulling some records before the first show, trying to decide that to play by previewing some things in studio A, when Radio Art, host of Americana Breakdown, heard the sounds of the Lemon Pipers. He told me they were from the Oxford Ohio area, and were there back when he was in college at Miami University. He went on to tell me of their connection to one of the all time great guitar tracks from the 70’s, Ram Jam’s version of Black Betty.
Black Betty was a song written by blues legend Lead Belly, and it just so happened that Shari had played the Lead Belly version a few weeks earlier on her show Ivy’s Red Sweater, which immediately follows mine.
Here are links for the original version and the 1977 hit that we all know so well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYrK464nIeY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0OFF3q4Pxk
For more about the Lemon Pipers or Ram Jam, wikipedia has things covered pretty well. After reading the articles there I was surprised to find out that the track that I played was the second single.