How "House of the Rising Sun" Rose

A “poor girl”

In 1937, music archivist Alan Lomax recorded a 16-year-old miner’s daughter, Georgia Turner, as she sung an early a cappella iteration of what came to be known as House of the Rising Sun. She called her version Rising Sun Blues. As was common of the era and her locale, Georgia had likely learned the tune from her parents or grandparents. (Two years later, Lomax would record another take by Tennessean Clarence Ashley. Ashley had also learned the song from his grandparents.)  

Many early generations of Rising Sun recordings were first made by Lomax. (An earlier version of the song was often misattributed to African American bluesman Texas Alexander for his recording of The Rising Sun in 1928. As it turns out, the two songs have nothing in common.) The version Georgia sang had origins going back possibly hundreds of years, making it older than the New Orleans itself. Musicologists say that it was based on an epic of the broadside ballad tradition, a musical form popular from the 16th to 19th centuries. (It most resembles The Unfortunate Rake—which musicologists date to around 1740—a lamentation on a dead man that’d succumb to syphilis.) Songs with similarly difficult-to-trace origins are called floating songs—songs with a long history of being passed around that transform in the process. Much has been speculated about the significance of the name “Rising Sun”—suggestions include a prison, a brothel, and a gambling house. 

The melody was likely from a traditional well-known English ballad, but the song would gain popularity in the US as an African-American folk song.

To the brothel theory: Legend says the local bordello name-checked in the song would’ve been run by a madame known as Marianne LeSoleil Levant (LeSoleil=Rising Sun in French). Her establishment would’ve opened for business in 1862. It closed in 1874 due to neighbors’ complaints. 

The Vox “Connie”

Lomax also claimed that “Rising Sun” was the name used for a bawdy house in two traditional English songs. As the eminent American collector of folk songs during the 20th-century, Lomax suggested “Rising Sun” was also a common English pub name. In addition, the location may have been changed from England to New Orleans by American white southern performers. 

As for the age of House of the Rising Sun lyric, by using the song’s internal clues, such as “blue jeans,” a railroad that would’ve served travelers arriving into New Orleans at the time, and the gambling houses of New Orleans, musicologists date the lyric from around 1895—the earliest printed version being 1925. 

As to how it came to the ears of our contemporary pop culture, it could’ve been among a number of likely sources, sung with musical or lyrical variations: Woody Guthrie, 1941; Josh White, 1942; Leadbelly, 1944 and 1948; Glen Yarborough (a popular folk singer of the 1950s), 1957; Joan Baez, at age 18 in 1960; Bob Dylan (stealing an arrangement from Dave Von Ronk), 1961; Nina Simone, 1962.

And this: Clearly, Griffith had a cool record collection—a version from 1959:

This is most likely the version most of us heard first, from 1964. It would become a number one in France, the UK, and the US:

The indelible Vox Continental (“Connie”) hook heard on The Animals’ version had its vibe pinched from, according to organist Alan Price, Jimmy Smith’s Walk on the Wild Side from 1962: