Expert: Geoff Wickens - 6/5/2006

Question
Who made the original recording hit of the
house of the rising sun ( there is a house
in new orleans ).
Thank youl

Answer
Everywhere I looked, it has says that the music and lyrics are "traditional." I did find one site that had some interesting info. I have no idea who wrote this quote so I don't know who the "I" is.


When I was young, a few years back, us lads who thought we could play guitar had to master the first few bars of this tune. Back in the early 1920s, the name "Rising Sun" was attributed to brothels. The traditional version of "The House of the Rising Sun" speaks, not of a boy's experience, but of a girl's. Fact was, the Animals did not write "The House of the Rising Sun" If you look at the really small print on their 1966 album, The Best of the Animals, you'll find it was only arranged by Burdon / Chandler / Price / Steele / Valentine. According to folklorist Alan Lomax in his book Our Singing Country (1941), the melody of "The House of the Rising Run" is a traditional English tune and the lyrics were written by Georgia Turner and Bert Martin (both from Kentucky). Above are the traditional lyrics from Lomax's book. Did the House of the Rising Sun ever really exist? A guidebook called Offbeat New Orleans asserts: "The real House of the Rising Sun was at 826-830 St. Louis Street, between 1862 and 1874 and was named for its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant, whose surname translates to The Rising Sun". But no one knows for certain. Source: (Beware self-loading audio !) www.anvil.clara.net/thehouse.htm

Hope this gives you a little more info than you were after as I always strive to answer questions that have yet to be asked.

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