I’ve been spending so much time with this song due to the backing track Doug made, might as well share some of it while it’s fresh. There’s additional info and related videos to be found at YouTube; I recommend clicking through to listen.

As with many blues songs, there’s a long, twisted tale about this song. You can find an outline of it at Wikipedia.

The first record released was Tommy McLennan’s in 1941 (someone else recorded it earlier, but that wasn’t released for about 50 years).

Although the lyrics are still pretty much the same as those early versions, when Albert King recorded his, he changed the music (released on the 1966 classic must-hear Born Under a Bad Sign on STAX). That’s the version most subsequent versions followed.

Earl Hooker does an instrumental version on his Ike Turner-produced Sweet Black Angel from 1970 on Blue Thumb—the wahwah does the singing for him. He also uses the opening riff and other licks in his “Earl’s Boogie” (filmed at the American Folk Blues Festival in 1969). The ascending opening riff in “Earl’s Boogie” is E-A-C, tracing the 5-1-b3 of the tonic chord.

Otis Rush recorded many versions. Everything he recorded in Japan in ’75 sounds like he was on fire, that’s why I chose this one instead of one where you can see him playing. I think this is the version from So Many Roads, but I’m not 100% sure (I do 100% like it, and I 100% recommend getting any of his 1975 recordings, Cold Day In Hell is another).

Here’s Otis Rush with Eric Clapton, live at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Casino Montreux, July 9, 1986 (this is the music from a very nice live DVD, Luther Allison also appears on it).

Eddie Taylor (who played with John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed and came up with the bass-on-gittar lumpa-lumpa shuffle J.R. was known for) released a version on Ready for Eddie, 1975.

Lurrie Bell (son of harmonica giant Carey Bell and one of the blues gittar greats of today—when he’s on, he’s 101%) has so many great live versions on YouTube, you can pick one or watch them all. Here’s the link to the search for them: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=crosscut+saw+lurrie+bell

Lonnie Brooks has a hot version from ’75.

Here’s a curiosity, with music that sounds like “Killing Floor” but the lyrics are “Crosscut Saw.” Muddy Waters, James Cotton and Pinetop Perkins are playing this, Johnny Winter is singing and playing—and they could do anything, so this isn’t even a stretch. Live at the Tower Theater, Philadelphia, March 6, 1977.

Albert King recaps it with Stevie Ray Vaughan sitting in (soundboard recording from Antone’s Nightclub, Austin, TX, February 26, 1983).

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Watch this space for Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied.”