Paul Robeson 'Ol' Man River' 1928 78 rpm

'Ol' Man River" written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II in 1927 for the show 'Showboat.
Paul Robeson starred as Joe in the 1928 Theatre Royal, Drury Lane production in London.
This now little heard (non pc) version was recorded at the time, Paul recorded an up tempo version of the song later in 1928 with Paul Whiteman's orchestra omitting the first verse he continued to alter lyrics throughout his career.

[michaelbovee]

There's a brutal honesty to these lyrics. We come face-to-face with truthful history.

[paulmccartney]

Oh man, i heard sammy davis jr sing a version of this song and i couldnt find it anywhere, but here it is. This is the only version of this song with that intro on youtube, thank you for posting!

[DaveMacDermott]

totally welled up listening to this. i wasn't aware that there were so many versions of this song; Paul Robeson is one of the greats

[Ika.Irete]

We should never be afraid of historical truth.

[rabblelevin]

I haven't heard this version before and I was surprised by those early lyrics. Robeson has a spectacular voice to state the obvious.

[InfoArtistJK]

Thanks! I'm singing Ol' Man River in 2 days Sunday, June 2nd, 2024, in Bethesda, Maryland.

[mckeldin]

I heard this once a few years back (maybe it was right here... I see it's been up since 2016... I'm writing this in 2022) and I was surprised (but not offended). I'd read that before appearing in the 1928 London production, Robeson asked Hammerstein to remove the N... word from the verse and that Hammerstein complied. I assumed Robeson had never sung the original lyric. I've never heard a bad version of Robeson singing this song, but this is one of the best ... not actually because of the original lyric, but because it's one of the most simple and heartfelt - yet restrained - versions that Robeson recorded. Thank you for sharing!

[osocooltoo]

What a wonderful person and singer..pity he wasn't alive today.

[zakthejack]

This touched me a lot. Tears were drawn from my eyes.

[chriskinkead]

Loved. To. Listen. To. Paul. From. When. I. Was. Young.

[IVORIESMAN]

Wow - fantastic version to have Al. (How times have changed).

[rjmcallister]

Like the old HMV label; also used by Victor in much of the rest of the world. Kern and Hammerstein meant to shame the plight of black men; they had to tone down the words for the 1936 sound version of the movie at Universal. While William Warfield covered it well for the 1951 version, Robeson's is definitive. His politics cost him the bulk of what would have been a great career.

[bikramchoudhury]

The evergreen song of conciousness and mass uprising.👍👍👍

[alanbaker]

a great singer who was persecuted by the USA authorities.

[zachgeorge]

is this a 78 i'm not sure it looks about the right size?

[SigmundB-kvox]

It hurt Paul Robeson to sing this, he later would later only sing lyric versions without the derogatory term for his "race". But as a song about the unfair fate and treatment of afro-americans in the south this versions has a bite the "clean" versions lack. The unfairness in his experience made him turn to communism for deliverance but he was to learn that racism is universal and the soviet union was, if not as bad as the south, plenty racist to. We can honour his efforts and contributions to a better world by judging no-one by the color of their skin.

[rosswalters]

Those horrible words are historical. Better hurry up and change history.
Somebody might be offended.