Hello everyone,
Today I was thinking what a fantastic Spring we are having.  This must be the best spring I can ever remember.  Seems like it is about a month early, but I will take any warm weather over cold any day.  Spring always brings about warm sunny days, birds singing, blooming flowers and lots of course, yard work!   I am not especially a “yard man” but I do enjoy the beauty of it all when it is freshly mowed, edged and blown off.

Along those lines of Spring, I was also thinking of an old song entitled:  “Sittin’ on top of the World”.  It has been played or recorded by just about any professional musician in a variety of genres’.  However, I really enjoy the bluegrass version.  The video is of Highland Rim performing a nice Bluegrass rendition.

Here is a little history according to wikipedia:
“Sitting on Top of the World” (also rendered as “Sittin’ on Top of the World“) is a folk-blues song written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon, core members of the Mississippi Sheiks, a popular country blues band of the 1930s. Walter Vinson claimed to have composed “Sitting on Top of the World” one morning after playing a white dance in Greenwood, Mississippi.^[1]
The song was first recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks in 1930 (on the Okeh label, No. 8784), became a popular cross-over hit for the band, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.^[2]
In May 1930 Charlie Patton recorded a version of the song (with altered lyrics) called “Some Summer Day”^[3] During the next few years cover-versions of “Sitting on Top of the World” were recorded by a number of artists: The Two Poor Boys, Big Bill Broonzy, Sam Collins, Milton Brown and Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. After Milton Brown recorded it for Bluebird Records the song became a staple in the repertoire of western swing bands.^[1]

“Sitting on Top of the World” has become a standard of traditional American music. The song has been widely recorded in a variety of different styles – folk, blues, country, bluegrass, rock – often with considerable variations and/or additions to the original verses. The lyrics convey a stoic optimism in the face of emotional setbacks, and the song has been described as a “simple, elegant distillation of the Blues”.

Hope you enjoyed your history lesson and have a joyous Easter.

See at one of the Friday jams.
Bill