who recorded house of the rising sun first
The House of the Rising Sun The oldest known recording of the song, under the title "Rising Sun Blues", is by Appalachian artists Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster, who recorded it for Vocalion Records on September 6, 1933.[6][11] Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Roy Acuff, an "early-day friend and apprentice" of Ashley's, learned it from him and recorded it as "Rising Sun" on November 3, 1938.[6][11] Several older blues recordings of songs with similar titles are unrelated, for example, "Rising Sun Blues" by Ivy Smith (1927) and "The Risin' Sun" by Texas Alexander (1928).[5]
The House of the Rising Sun Like many classic folk ballads, "The House of the Rising Sun" is of uncertain authorship. Musicologists say that it is based on the tradition of broadside ballads, and thematically it has some resemblance to the 16th-century ballad The Unfortunate Rake.[4] According to Alan Lomax, "Rising Sun" was used as the name of a bawdy house in two traditional English songs, and it was also a name for English pubs.[5] He further suggested that the melody might be related to a 17th-century folk song, "Lord Barnard and Little Musgrave", also known as "Matty Groves",[6][7] but a survey by Bertrand Bronson showed no clear relationship between the two songs.[8] Lomax proposed that the location of the house was then relocated from England to New Orleans by white southern performers.[5] However, Vance Randolph proposed an alternative French origin, the "rising sun" referring to the decorative use of the sunburst insignia dating to the time of Louis XIV, which was brought to North America by French immigrants.[8]