Just as in years previous, Amazon has added new songs to their Amazon Original playlists “Love Me” and “Love Me Not”. These playlists feature new and recent recordings of both cheerful, upbeat, love songs, we well as their polar opposites, songs of heartbreak and loss. The artists involved span many genres, and this year they include Of Montreal, Jay Som, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Screaming Females, Dan Auerbach, and Marlon Williams among many others.
Folk singer-songwriter Willie Watson, who was one of the co-founders of Old Crow Medicine Show, recorded this live take of the American classic “San Francisco Bay Blues” at AmericanaFest and it’s one of the prime cuts on the “Love Me Not” playlist. The tune was written by one-man band Jesse Fuller who made the first recording back in 1954 and an A-list of artists has covered the song, including John Lennon, Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan.
Watson‘s superbly old-timey tinged voice really sells the song, along with the gentle, ambling arrangement. Sometimes the blues just feels best.