Dyin' Crapshooter Blues

How you want to go?

Eight crapshooters to be my pallbearers

Let 'em be veiled down in black

I want nine men going to the graveyard

Eight men coming back 

Blind Willie McTell (1898-1959) recorded his version of Dyin' Crapshooter Blues in 1949, but it was only released with some of his other recordings in 1972 on the album Atlanta Twelve String.  The song features his distinctive voice and playing.

 

Thematically, Crapshooter Blues, bears some resemblance to St James Infirmary Blues.  In turn, Bob Dylan adapted the melody of St James for one of his finest songs, Blind Willie McTell, with its refrain, "No one can sing the blues, like Blind Willie McTell", interspersed with vivid imagery in the verses.

 

Blind Willie McTell was born William Samuel McTier in 1898 or 1901 at Thomson, Georgia.  As a youngster he was part of the Great Migration of African-Americans to the north, growing up in Detroit.  Along the way he learned to play the blues on a 12-string guitar.  Like many of the bluesmen of the era, he had trouble finding a market for his music, as well as his own personal troubles, and by the 1950s was reduced to playing for spare change on Atlanta street corners.  

His best known song today is Statesboro Blues which was for decades a staple of Allman Brothers shows.