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"I'm gon' turn back my mattress/And let you oil my springs…"
We covered Mississippi sauce pot Lucille in our recent A-Z of blues - she was lurking in the X for X-rated entry, the minx…
Lucille’s infamous 1935 recording of Shave ‘Em Dry, accompanied by pianist Walter Roland, deserves a generous mouthful of soap but it is a great performance. The sexual frankness evident in the song was born out of Lucille’s tough stints in rough clubs and juke joints.
The subject matter of her songs was based on the drinking and whoring she witnessed every night. Lucille was just singing about what she knew about... which is what the blues is about after all. Here endeth the lesson!
