Tennessee Blues

Lyrics: Bobby Charles
Music: Bobby Charles

Sung by Geoff Muldaur with Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders in February 1974, and by Anna Rizzo with Kingfish in the 1980s.

If I had my way
I'd leave here today
I'd move in a hurry

I'd find me a place
Where I could stay
And not have to worry

A place I'd feel loose
A place I could lose
Those Tennessee blues

I'd find me a spot
On some mountain top
With no one around me

With valleys and streams
And birds in the trees
And lakes that surround me
A place I'd feel loose
A place I could lose
Those Tennessee blues

A place to forget
All my regrets
And keep just the good times

A place I could sleep
In nothing but peace
And feel free an all time

A place I'd feel loose
A place I could lose
Those Tennessee blues
A place I could lose
Those Tennessee blues

"Tennessee Blues is a Bobby Charles tune. He was the guy I travelled with when I was with Better Days with Butterfield. And he was a guy from the Lafayette area, Abbeville Louisiana. He was just so Louisiana you couldn't take it. Spoke French. If I had written down everything he ever said to me, I'd be a hit song-writer. It was just the way he spoke. He came into Woodstock sort of running from the law in Nashville, and found a place, and became a Woodstock guy for a while. Hung out with The Band, did things with Levon, did things with us - wrote tunes for us. And he was my travelling mate. He was in Alan Fried's rock-n-roll show, and the guy he travelled with then was Chuck Berry. And he wrote "See You Later, Alligator". And Leonard Chess talked to him on the phone, and he thought he was hiring a black artist. And Bobby came up to Chicago and he [Chess] almost fell over. 'Cause he was a funky guy, man. Extremely, extremely funky."