You Gotta Move

Sticky Fingers
Track 5
"You Gotta Move" (Fred McDowell/Rev. Gary Davis) – 2:34



This is the old blues number "You Got to Move", recorded by any number of artists over the years and on YouTube, but associated primarily with its "composer" Mississippi Fred McDowell. Composer in quotes – it's hard to know if anyone actually composed any particular blues song, since so many of the melodies and lyrics were floating around in the public domain and had a habit of turning up over and over again in different songs. Anyway, the Stones took a crack at it for some reason, with Mick Taylor on the 12-string playing slide and Mick Jagger singing in blackface.

Anyway, enough about the Stones. Back in high school, their version led me indirectly to the version by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel group whose career stretches back to the depression, who spent a lot of time on my turntable over the last two decades. This is the second time Blogging the Stones has come across the group (previously on "The Last Time"), and I've got two songs lined up for you today. Here they are singing "You Got To Move" (click title to download).



Here they are singing one of my favourite gospel compositions, "Here Am I":