Alberta (blues)


"Alberta" is the title of several traditional blues songs.

Lead Belly song

recorded four different version of "Alberta". One of these was recorded in New York on January 23, 1935, and a similar version was recorded in New York on June 15, 1940. Another version, recorded in Wilton, Connecticut, on January 20, 1935, included the lyrics "Take me, Alberta, take me down in your rocking chair" and is included on Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In. Lead Belly's fourth recorded version survives on recording disc BC-122 of the Mary Elizabeth Barnicle–Tillman Cadle Collection at East Tennessee State University, recorded near the date of June 15, 1948, with which several related discs are labeled.

Wheeler 1944 song

Mary Wheeler, in her Steamboatin' Days: Folk Songs of the River Packet Era, records a song she collected from Gabriel "Uncle Gabe" Hester, with the lyrics:
Wheeler also reports Hester's reminiscences of the steamboat work songs he had sung as a roustabout in his younger days. However, Wheeler's account does not explicitly give any evidence for Roger McGuinn's statement that, "This is a song sung by the stevedores who worked on the Ohio River."
The song became popular in the American folk music revival.