"Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee" is a jump blues song written by Stick McGhee and J. Mayo Williams in 1949 and originally recorded by "Stick” McGhee & His Buddies. It became an early hit for Atlantic Records, reaching No. 2 on the US R&B charts.R&B Box, 30 Years of Rhythm * Blues; Volume 1, Jumpin’ the Blues, 1943-1950, Rhino Records, Los Angeles, CA, 1994
Background Picardie and Wade in their book Atlantic and the Godfathers of Rock and Roll explain how the Atlantic version came to be. Stick McGhee had recorded the song in January 1947 in New Orleans for Harlem Records, a label which went out of business in 1948. A distributor from New Orleans called Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records to find out if the firm could supply 5,000 copies of the song. Ertegun could not but offered to make an exact copy of the record. He first had to find someone to sing it and remembered Brownie McGhee whom Ertegun had met in his "endless trips to Harlem. I called him up and he said he could do it, but as it happened, his brother Stick was staying with him, so he might as well remake his own record." The song was recorded that same night and went on to sell 400,000 copies.Picardie, Justine and Dorothy Wade, Atlantic and the Godfathers of Rock and Roll, Fourth Estate, London, 1993 pp. 20-21
1949 recordings The song charted on the US R&B chart by three different artists in 1949, Stick McGhee’s version ("Stick" McGhee & His Buddies)R&B Box, 30 Years of Rhythm & Blues; Volume 1, Jumpin' the Blues, 1943-1950, Rhino Records, Los Angeles, California, 1994 reached No. 2, Wynonie Harris'sHarris, Wynonie, The Very Best of Wynonie Harris: Good Rockin' Tonight, Gusto Records, Nashville Tennessee, 2006 hit No. 4 and Lionel Hampton went up to No. 13.Whitburn, Joel, The Billboard Book of TOP 40 R&B and Hip Hop Hits, Billboard Books, New York, 2006, p. 385, p. 234, p. 231
Other recordings The song was covered by Jerry Lee Lewis, whose recording reached number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100. Other cover versions were recorded by Big John Greer, Johnny Burnette, Mike Bloomfield's Electric Flag (as "Wine"), The Pirates without Johnny Kidd and Richard Thompson (as included on 1000 Years of Popular Music).
Charts Jerry Lee Lewis version Chart (1973)Peakposition U.S. Cash Box Country Singles 21
References
External links "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" by Stick McGhee on Songfacts