Tom Gates Orchestra - The Bucket Got's A Hole In It

Hardly anything is known about this territory band, playing at different venues in St Paul (Minnesota). Members were Lee N. Blevins, trombone; Earl Clark, banjo; Frank Cloutier, piano and director; Bob Gates, bass brass; Tom Gates, leader and tenor saxophone; Tracy "Pug" Mama, clarinet and alto saxophone; Victor Sells, trumpet; Nevin Simmons, alto saxophone and vocals; Harold Stoddard, drums. This excellent record was made in 1927. Vocal by Nevin Simmons and uncredited band members. Although this song is generally credited to Clarence Williams, who obtained a copyright of this old, rural folk ditty in 1933, Tom Gates and his Orchestra performed the earliest known recording of this song as "The Bucket's Got a Hole in It." Even in this early recording, the melody had already been used by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in their She's Crying For Me Blues ('25 - Victor), also by Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight in '27 as To-Wa-Bac-A-Wa-Yale Blues. The song became popular performed by Hank Williams for MGM and reached #4 on the country chart in 1949. However the rendering by Tom Gates and his Orchestra gives credit to musicians Lee Blevins and Victor Sells as authors. This version predates the C. Williams copyright. Hank Williams "could have been given this ditty to record, [but] he may have been familiar with this ditty from previous recordings or had heard it while growing up in Alabama." The original melody evolved from the second theme of "Long Lost Blues" published in 1914 by J. Paul Wyer and H. Alf Kelley. The "Long Lost Blues" theme was a variation of "Bucket's Got a Hole in It", a motif that appears in several versions of "Keep A-Knockin". This tune later became the basis for several versions of the song, "You Can't Come In" recorded by multiple artists. However, "Bucket's Got a Hole in It" has also been attributed to Buddy Bolden, which would date it before 1906. It should be noted that Washboard Sam, aka Robert Brown, also released a version of this song on Bluebird B-7906 known as "Bucket's Got A Hole In It." This recording was made in 1937.