House of the Rising Sun chords by Leadbelly

Lead Belly recorded two versions of the song in February 1944 and in October 1948 called "In New Orleans" and "The House of the Rising Sun" respectively, and the latter was recorded in the sessions that later became the album Lead Belly's Last Sessions (1994, Smithsonian Folkways). Alan Price of The Animals has claimed that the song was originally a sixteenth-century English folk song about a Soho brothel, and that English emigrants took the song to America where it was adapted to its later New Orleans setting. The oldest known existing recording is by Appalachian artists Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster and was made in 1933. Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Alger "Texas" Alexander's "The Risin' Sun," recorded in 1928, is sometimes mentioned as the first recording, but is a completely different song. The song might have been lost to obscurity had it not been collected by folklorist Alan Lomax, who, along with his father, was a curator of the Archive of American Folk Song for the Library of Congress. On an expedition with his wife to eastern Kentucky Lomax set up his recording equipment in Middlesborough, Kentucky in the house of a singer and activist called Tilman Cadle. On September 15, 1937 he recorded a performance by Georgia Turner, the 16 year-old daughter of a local miner. He called it "The Risin' Sun Blues." Lomax later recorded a different version sung by Bert Martin and a third sung by Daw Henson, both eastern Kentucky singers. In his 1941 songbook Our Singing Country, Lomax credits the lyrics to Turner, with reference to Martin's version. According to his later writing, the melody bears similarities to the traditional English ballad "Matty Groves." Roy Acuff, who recorded the song on November 3, 1938, may have learned the song from Clarence Ashley, with whom he sometimes performed. In 1941, Woody Guthrie recorded a version. A recording made in 1947 by Josh White, who is also credited with having written new words and music that have subsequently been popularized in the versions made by many other later artists, was released by Mercury Records in 1950. Lead Belly recorded two versions of the song in February 1944 and in October 1948 called "In New Orleans" and "The House of the Rising Sun" respectively, and the latter was recorded in the sessions that later became the album Lead Belly's Last Sessions (1994, Smithsonian Folkways). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.