Whatever his origin and background, by 1934 Gordon was signed to a recording contract. Apart from one Bluebird side at the beginning of his recording career, all of Gordon 's pre-war work was released by Decca. Gordon 's backing ensembles, sometimes billed as the Vip Vop Band, variously included such notable blues and jazz musicians as Scrapper Blackwell, the brothers Papa Charlie McCoy and Kansas Joe McCoy, members of the Harlem Hamfats, Frankie Newton, Pete Brown, Buster Bennett, and the drummer Zutty Singleton. This ability to base backing units around a jazz - blues fusion of musicians was started by the Harlem Hamfats, but Gordon 's use of this arrangement proved the basis for many later blues bands. His most commercially successful number was a song he wrote, "I 'd Rather Drink Muddy Water '', in 1936 His ability to raise social issues in his songs is shown by "Do n't Take Away My P.W.A. '' (1936), a homage of sorts to the Public Works Administration (P.W.A.), a large - scale public works construction agency in the United States in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
who wrote i'd rather drink muddy water
Gordon Gordon Gordon Gordon