It’s hard to hear any version of the House of the Rising Sun without flashing back to my days in New Orleans, walking through the thick humid air at night and drenched in a kind of sweat that somehow feels just right rather than totally miserable like it does most other places in the world.
Everyone knows this song, thanks to The Animals making it a hit back in 1964, but according to Wikipedia “the oldest known existing recording is by versatile Appalachian artists Clarence “Tom” Ashley and Gwen Foster and was made in 1933.” At the time it was known as Rising Sun Blues. It’s said that the song was adapted at some unkown date from an old English folk song dated around the 17th century. The BBC has a nice history of the song here.
It’s been covered many many times, and below you’ll find just a few of them.
