FISHIN' BLUES

When a song is not what you think it is

Twenty five years ago this month, three friends and I took a cross country drive from NYC to Montana, to hike and camp in the Bitteroot Mountains. It took us about 48 hours straight to drive there, with occasional for food and bowel relief, and a few hours spent exploring the Badlands of South Dakota.

My friend Paul provided most of the entertainment with his boombox and his collection of mix tapes. For some reason we did not rent a car that included a taped deck, and in lieu of constant change of the radio dial, Paul’s tape deck and mix tapes were our main source of driving music. And one song, in the middle of a mix of blues songs, became our favorite; a song we called “I’m Goin’ Fishin”, but I would later learn was called “Fishin Blues”.

I betcha' goin' fishin' all o' the time

Baby goin' fishin' too

Bet you life, your sweet wife

Is gonna catch more fish than you

Many fish bites if you got good bait

Here's a little tip that I would like to relate

Many fish bites if you got good bait

I'm a goin' fishin', yes I'm goin' fishin'

And my baby goin' fishin' too

Paul could not remember the name of the group performing the song, but through the speakers of his stereo, it sounded like something that Alan Lomax may have stumbled across in his travels, archiving the American soundtrack. Plenty of banjo, fiddle and harmonica. The vocalists sounded like hundred-year-old men who had been singing it together on some back porch their entire lives. Yes, there were other tapes and songs, from Johnny Cash to Arlo Guthrie to Santana, but this was the tape, and the song, that we kept going to when we needed a pickup.

The mix tape would be eventually lost (I believe I was the one who lost it - sorry, Paul), and with it, the only copy of that rendition of “Fishin’ Blues” that we could find, Now, this was the year 2000; a time where the iPod has not been created, and Napster was the only source of music a person could find without sifting through record stores, and it did not seem possible to locate any version of “Fishin’ Blues.” But I wanted to find that song, to hear it again. Trying to pick up faraway stations on tiny radios was to no avail.

The first version I heard of the song outside of the mixtape was in the early 2000s. It was on “Anthology of American Folk Music”, collected by another music archivist, Harry Smith. Originally released in 1952 and re-issued 1997, it was a six-album set of blues, folk and bluegrass recordings from artists who may have been lost history without such a document to preserve them. it begins with “henry Lee’ by Dick Justice and ends with … yes, “Fishin’ Blues” by Henry Thomas. At first, I thought my quest was over. But as I listened, I soon realized that it was not.

Thomas’ is obviously a solo work, played on guitar faster and sung at a higher tone than the version I heard on Paul’s boombox. That is not to say Thomas’ version is not wonderful on its own, complete with notes from a quill pipe after the chorus is sung that sound very much like the recorder we played as kids in school. But my journey to find that special version had not been resolved.

By the time I returned to the quest, there was a better knowledge of the folk and blues collections throughout the decades, as well as access to new technologies: a quick search of Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and even Youtube turned up many versions of “Fishin’ Blues.” The most popular version is one recorded by Taj Mahal, but there are versions by the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. And there is “Talking Fishing Blues” by Woody Guthrie, a very different tune, the type of song that would inspire Bob Dylan to do his own talkin’ blues.

I was thinking that my quest was going to come up empty, that this mysterious version of “Fishin’ Blues” is just going to end up a never-ending earworm. That was until, going through another YouTube search, I found a version of “Fishin’ Blues” by a group of five white people. Surely this was not the version I heard in the car during that trip, but I could not let it pass without a listen. Well, lo and behold …

… this was the version I heard on that car ride to Montana. The slowed down tempo, plenty of banjo, fiddle and harmonica. The improved audio from a tinny speaker on a portable tape deck made the vocals clearer and less like a lo-fi field recording, but I recognized them from that mix tape.

So who was this mysterious group of musicians covering a song from a well-renowned folk collection? Well, the name of the band was Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band. Kweskin was the leader of the so-called “Folk Music Revival”, the product of digging for albums by artists such as Guthrie, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, Mississippi John Hurt, and Robert Johnson, along with collections such as “Anthology of American Folk Music.” “Fishin’ Blues” was featured on their sixth album, “See Reverse Side For Title”, which also featured a cover of a Mississippi John Hurt song, along with “Viola Lee Blues”, which would become a popular Grateful Dead song. One member of the band, Mel Lyman, would form the Fort Hill Community in Boston, a commune that many considered a cult. Another member, Maria D’Amato, would go on to have a Top Ten hit with “Midnight at the Oasis,” as Maria Muldaur.

While Kweskin and his Jug Band have a good deal of fun performing their version of folk, it is not meant as parody, but as a loving tribute to their heroes. Muldaur’s voice in unmistakeable, and the performances are professional and upbeat, to be sure. Still, to think that on a ride to Montana, my friends and I thought that awe had stumbled on some gateway directly to some Mississippi juke joint that an archivist stumbled on, and set up his field mics to capture and preserve for all time. It was that same practice that led to “Anthology of American Folk Music” and the original recording of “Fishin’ Blues” when Kweskin and his Jug Band decided to cover, which we had stumbled on for our own internal archives, which led to myself going on a quest to find “Fishin’ Blues”, and go through a lot of folk anthologies in my quest to find it.

As for Kweskin, he is still performing. In fact, he hawks his latest release, 2025’s “Doing Things Right”, on his official website, and like many other musicians, he sells his album, and the majority of his catalogue, on the web site Bandcamp. Nobody has to wait for an Alan Lomax or Harry Smith to find them; they can get on the web and promote themselves, which was supposed to be the purpose of online music in the first place.

So if you are reading this any your name is Paul Woletske, the man who carried that boombox to Montana, that’s the answer to who sang “Fishin’ Blues”. Thanks for bringing it, and I’m sorry I lost the tape, and that it took me so long to figure out who performed that song. As for you, dear reader, listen to “Anthology of American Folk Music” if you get a chance, and go check out Montana if you get a chance. You will be awed by the purple mountains majesty and the Big Sky, bigger than you’ve ever seen. Just don’t be surprised when you realize that every town in the state looks the same, with main street, bar, and Greyhound stop. I was very disappointed that Miles City was not a bustling metropolis. The name, you know.