The Bluegrass Messengers
All Night Long- Version 1 Original Lyrics: Shelton Brooks

All Night Long

Old-time, bluegrass, jazz song. Widely known.

ARTIST: Shelton Brooks CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes

DATE: 1912 Earliest printed date song by Shelton Brooks 1912. Earliest recording by Roba & Bob Stanley 1924.

RECORDING INFO: [Clarence] Ashley & [Gwen] Foster, "Baby, All Night Long" (Vocalion 02780, 1934) Burnett & Rutherford, "All Night Long Blues" (Columbia 15314-D, 1928; rec. 1927; on BurnRuth01) Oscar Craver [pseud. for Byrd Moore], "All Night Long" (Conqueror 7259, 1929) Clint Howard & Fred Price, "The Richmond Blues" (on Ashley02, WatsonAshley01) Frank Hutchison, "All Night Long" (OKeh 45144, 1927) Earl Johnson & his Dixie Entertainers, "All Night Long" (OKeh 45383, 1929; rec. 1927) Miles & Bob Pratcher, "If It's All Night Long" (on LomaxCD1703) Roba & Bob Stanley, "All Night Long" (OKeh 40295, 1925; rec. 1924) Blizard, Ralph; & John Lilly. Blue Highway, Blizard BH4591, Cas (1991), trk# 8 (Richmond Blues) Burnett and Rutherford. Mountain Songs, County 504, LP (196?), trk# A.05 [1927/11/03] Bursen, Howard (Howie). Building Boom, Flying Fish FF 441, LP (1988), trk# A.01 (Richmond Blues) Fly By Night String Band. Fly By Night String Band, Fretless 146, LP (1980), trk# B.02 (Richmond Blues) Foghorn Stringband. Old-Time Portland Potluck, Bubbaguitar, CD (2005), trk# 1b Folksmiths. We've Got Some Singing to Do, Folkways FA 2407, LP (1958), trk# B.09 Howard, Clint; and Fred Price. Old-Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. Part 1, Folkways FA 2355, LP (1961), trk# 5 [1962ca] (Richmond Blues) Johnson, Earl; and his Clodhoppers. Southern Dance Music, Vol. 2, Old-Timey LP 101, LP (1965), trk# 2 [1927/10/07] New Lost City Ramblers. Cohen, John, Mike Seeger & Hally Wood / Old Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1976/1964), p172 (Baby, All Night Long) Perry County Music Makers. Going Back to Tennessee, Davis Unlimited DU 33024, LP (1974), trk# A.04 Pratcher, Miles and Bob. Southern Journey. Vol. 3: 61 Highway Mississippi, Rounder 1703, CD (1997), trk# 22 [1959/09/21] (If It's All Night Long) Pratcher, Miles and Bob. Sounds of the South, Atlantic 7-82496-2, CD( (1993), trk# 2.04 [1959/07ca] Rossbach, John. From the Mountains to the Mills, Chestnut CRCD 103, CD (2002), trk# 6 (Richmond Blues) Rutherford and Foster. Fiddle Band Music from Kentucky, Vol.1, Wink the Other Eye, MorningStar 45003, LP (1980), trk# A.04 [1929/04/11] (Richmond Blues) Stanley, Roba. Banjo Pickin' Girl, Rounder 1029, LP (1978), trk# A.03 [1924/12ca] Tobacco Tags. Songs of the Tobacco Tags, Vol. 1, Old Homestead OHCS 156, LP (1984), trk# 7 (Good Gal Remember Me)

NOTES: The “All Night Long” songs are a group of songs ending with “all night long/ baby all night long” etc. “Paul and Silas” is an example of traditional “All night long” song. Most of the bluegrass/old-time songs originated from “All Night Long” written by the African-American composer Shelton Brooks. The verse of Brooks song, which can be viewed on-line (see Version 1), is the basis for versions by the 1927 versions by Burnett & Rutherford and also Earl Johnson. Later versions sometimes called “Richmond Blues,” were recorded by Doc Watson and Ralph Stanley.

I consider “Paul and Silas” to be a different song, although it is also a good bluegrass song (listen to The Country Gentlemen). The “All Night Long” blues songs are not the same song (even though Burnett & Rutherford titled their song "All Night Long Blues"). So the songs we are dealing with here are the All Night Long/Brooks songs. These are also titles of this branch: Richmond Blues; Let Your Shack Burn Down; Baby All Night long; Oh sweet Mama; It’s All Night Long.

Excerpt from “Shelton Brooks- A Profile” by Thomas Morgan

Shelton Brooks was born to Native American & Black parents in Amherstburg, Ontario, on May 4, 1886. His father was a preacher and as a child he played the organ in his father's church, while his older brother pumped, since the bellows were below his reach. When he was 15, his family moved to Detroit and it was there that he had his first professional music job playing self-taught piano. In 1910, Sophie Tucker's maid introduced the singer to both Brooks and the song which would become Tucker's theme when she insisted that Brooks be brought to sing for her employer in Tucker's dressing room in a Chicago vaudeville theater. It was the start of a friendship was to last a lifetime in the process enabling more than a few musical careers.

The song was Some of These Days, which Tucker liked and began using immediately. I've turned it inside out, she was to write, singing it every way imaginable, as a dramatic song, as a novelty number, as a sentimental ballad, and always audiences have loved it and asked for it. In 1911, Brooks appeared in his first musical comedy, Dr. Herb's Prescription, or It Happened in a Dream. Performed in Chicago's famous African-American owned Pekin Theater, the comedy was produced by its star, Jesse Shipp, who had previously been involved in the Williams and Walker shows in New York.

Brooks quickly became known as an outstanding entertainer whose talents included singing, piano playing, and mimicking his fellow black vaudevillian Bert Williams. He also traveled as a trap drummer with Danny Small's Hot Harlem Band for several months during this period. The second decade of the twentieth century was an era of tango teas where whisky, not tea, was the drink of choice, and parties that lasted til dawn, and Brooks's songs captured its moods perfectly. His 1912 publication, All Night Long, evoked the nightclubs that literally never closed their doors; in fact, their owners often did not even have front door keys. His 1916 instrumental called Walkin' The Dog inspired a dance that swept dance-mad Manhattan and the rest of the country as well.

Brooks's most famous song was Darktown Strutter's Ball. Published in 1917 and introduced to the public on record by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, it became an instant success. Along with W. C. Handy and William Grant Still, the dean of black classical composers, Brooks was honored in San Francisco at the ASCAP-sponsored Festival of American Music in 1940. He died in Los Angeles on September 6, 1975.

Here are the lyrics to “All Night Long:” 

ALL NIGHT LONG by Shelton Brooks (original lyrics- verse only)

My sweetheart went away last night, I don’t know what to do,
Every time he goes away, I always feel so blue,
All night long, all night long.

He knows I love no one but him, that’s why he is unkind,
‘Cause all the time that he’s away, he’s always on my mind.
All night long, all night long.

I have a photo of my beau, I always keep it near.
Every time I look at it, it brings a sigh or tear,
All night long, all night long.

I’ve got so nervous from the strain that I can sleep no more.
I got to thinking of my boy till I oft walk the floor
All night long, all night long.

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