House of the Rising Sun : Found?
Jeff in LA
3579551.story?coll=la-home-headlines
March 20, 2005
LA Times
New Orleans Legend May Prove to Be Reputable
The Rising Sun has long been a house of musical inspiration. It could
soon have a real address.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS ‹ A century ago, sung in the Appalachian hills from the
point of view of a young and weary prostitute, it was about the
pitfalls of sin. In the 1940s, Woody Guthrie turned it into an anthem
to working-class America. In the 1960s, it was about daring sexuality.
At every turn, even as its words wrapped themselves around new eras and
sensibilities, "House of the Rising Sun" remained a song of New
Orleans. The simple folk song in a minor key always spoke to the sultry
allure of this city from its first words, an opening line seared into
one generation after another: "There is a house in New Orleans they
call the Rising Sun."
No one has figured out ‹ and many have tried ‹ if the song depicts an
actual bordello, and, if it does, where the real Rising Sun was. But a
collection of pottery shards pulled recently from the ruddy soil of the
French Quarter could prove to be the key that would unlock that beloved
mystery.
This winter, a nonprofit organization called the Historic New Orleans
Collection decided to expand. The organization, which runs a museum and
research center, owned seven buildings in the heart of the French
Quarter but needed another to serve as a vault. The group bought a
one-level, ramshackle parking garage on Conti Street ‹ pronounced
KAHNT-eye ‹ and announced plans to tear it down.
The purchase was serendipitous. If just about anyone else had bought
the lot, no study would have been conducted. But the organization ‹
dedicated, after all, to Louisiana history ‹ wanted to know the story
behind its property. It asked a scholar at the University of Chicago
and a New Orleans archeology firm called Earth Search to perform an
excavation and document search.
"It was total luck," said Ryan Gray, an Earth Search archeologist
involved in the excavation. "Normally somebody would just dig right
through the ramparts of the first layout of New Orleans. There are no
provisions to guard against that."
The archeologists, who plan to launch a more exhaustive study on
Tuesday, found that a hotel called the Rising Sun appeared to have
operated on the site from the early 1800s until 1822, when it burned to
the ground.
In an 1821 advertisement from the newspaper La Gazette, a company
called L.S. Hotchkiss explained that it had taken over the hotel but
offered reassurance to customers: "No pain or expence [sic] will be
spared by the new proprietors to give general satisfaction, and
maintain the character of giving the best entertainment."
The next sentence: "Gentlemen may here rely upon finding attentive
Servants." Similar language, Gray said, was used in old bordello
advertisements to make it clear ‹ without explicitly saying so ‹ that
extracurricular services were available.
Rising Sun has been a common business name here, however, for 200 years
or so. There is a difference, the archeologists said, between finding a
Rising Sun and finding the Rising Sun ‹ the one in the song.
About 2? feet below the surface, the researchers discovered a large
number of liquor bottles. Alongside them was an unusually dense
collection of rouge pots. The distinctive jars were painted sea green
or blue and designed to hold makeup. They were heavier on the bottom
than the top; that way a woman could sweep her fingertips across the
rouge when she needed a touch-up without tipping the pot or stopping to
pick it up.
The combination of liquor and evidence that there were lots of women
who required much makeup was encouraging. Gray said it was also
possible that fragments of bones lifted from the soil could be from
exotic animals, though none had been found. Excavations of other houses
of prostitution, he said, have shown that women who worked there
frequently kept unusual pets, such as imported birds. Additional tests
will be conducted in New Orleans on the bone fragments taken from the
Conti Street site.
Shannon Dawdy, the Chicago scholar who led the excavation, said she was
not prepared to declare that she had found the Rising Sun. When she and
her students conduct the more detailed study, among other things, they
will look at census reports to see if a large number of women were
reported as residents of the hotel and at police reports to see if
there were complaints or incident reports at the address.
"The archeology is suggestive at this point," Dawdy said. "I'm
certainly excited just for the possibility. But I don't want to add to
the mythology of New Orleans unnecessarily until I know more.
Everything needs a caveat for now."
Many of those touched by the song are enchanted by it ‹ and by the
possibility of an archeological breakthrough. Eric Burdon first heard
it at a folk club when he was growing up in Newcastle, in northeastern
England.
"I was fascinated with prostitution," Burdon recalled last week in an
interview from his home in Joshua Tree, Calif. "I thought it was
incredible that women could have power over men to make them loose up
their hard-earned money in exchange for sex."
In 1964, Burdon's band, the Animals, recorded a rock-blues version that
made it the first British group after the Beatles to have a top single
in America. Burdon says that when he's on tour, it is still the one
song audiences feel they must hear. Over time, he has fallen for the
song and the city it is about.
"I like to call New Orleans the cradle of the best of the worst,"
Burdon said. "The place is reeking of death. It is as dark a town as it
is light. The song is a musical icon, handed down from generation to
generation. It never seems to go away, and it's become a great mystery.
It's cool."
Burdon, however, is among those who are skeptical of the potential new
find. So are some tour guides in New Orleans. Several have long pointed
to a site on nearby St. Louis Street as the location of the Rising Sun,
based mostly on murky reports that a madam named Marianne LeSoleil
Levant once lived there. Her last name translated loosely to "Rising
Sun."
Gray, the archeologist, said he understood the reluctance.
"There are so many buildings here that are so distinctive and
romantic," he said. "It's not very glamorous to go by a parking garage
and say: 'This is the place!' "
Others say they think the song was never about a real place. The
conflicting opinions are due to the fact that the song's origin, like
that of many folk songs, is unknown.
Dozens of recordings have been made over the years, in musical genres
as varied as gospel and zydeco, by performers as varied as Leadbelly
and Dolly Parton. Music historians say its meaning, like that of many
great folk songs, seemed to change with time. It was traditionally seen
as a warning to those who might consider falling into a life of sin.
But the Animals turned its narrator into a man, and although the song
remained a melancholy dirge, it took on new undertones of sexuality
that fit the times.
The first known recording of the song was made in 1937, when a music
historian named Alan Lomax learned it from a miner's daughter in
Kentucky. It was then known as the "Rising Sun Blues."
Historians say many folk songs at the time ‹ at least their melodies ‹
came from England, Scotland or Ireland.
Burdon said he thought the chord sequence was "certainly not American"
and that its key suggested it was derivative of a British church hymn.
"Nothing is what it seems," he said. "The more we know, the older
things get."
Today, there is a Rising Sun in New Orleans ‹ the House of the Rising
Sun Bed & Breakfast in Algiers, across the Mississippi River from the
French Quarter.
Owners Kevin and Wendy Herridge named their inn, which is inside a very
pink house, after the song or, more specifically, after the myth
surrounding the song.
The couple have collected dozens of recorded versions, and brothel
memorabilia hangs on the walls, including a sign warning women to "do
your soliciting discreetly."
The name attracts quite a bit of attention, said Kevin Herridge. A man
from Morocco recently e-mailed because he was learning the guitar and ‹
like many aspiring guitarists ‹ wanted to learn the famous arpeggios
that open the Animals' version.
"But it can backfire too," Herridge said. "Once in a while people think
we are a house of ill repute. They will call up and say, 'What is your
specialty?' I say, 'Well, we do a nice continental breakfast. It's very
healthy.' They say: 'You know what I mean.' And I have to tell them
that they've got the wrong idea."
A London native and music historian who moved to New Orleans in 1994,
Herridge said he also thought the song had its roots in England. There,
he says, many small towns still have pubs called the Rising Sun ‹ clean
ones that sell pints and the occasional sandwich.
Some in England sing a folk song that begins with: "There is a house in
Lowestoft," a reference to a town in the Suffolk region. The song,
which doesn't appear to have ever been recorded, is intended to be
humorous. Lowestoft is a sleepy fishing village ‹ "so it probably
wasn't there either," Herridge said with a laugh.
Herridge said he thought that 18th and 19th century folk singers in
Appalachian regions gave "House of the Rising Sun" a New Orleans flavor
because they considered the city an emblem of sin. If he's right, the
brothel that has been the "ruin of many a poor girl" never existed ‹
which means the search could go on forever.
That's just as it should be, he said.
"Our great-great-grandchildren will still be talking about it," he
said. "People here like it unsolved. It's good for the imagination."
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
The Lyrics: Traditional Versus Modern
The origins of the folk song "House of the Rising Sun" are unknown. The
first known recording was in 1937 and has been recorded dozens of times
since, most famously in 1964 by the British band the Animals.
*
Traditional lyrics, as recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax:
There is a house in New Orleans
they call the Rising Sun.
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl,
and me, O God, for one.
If I had listened what Mamma said,
I'd 'a' been at home today.
Being so young and foolish, poor boy,
let a rambler lead me astray.
Go tell my baby sister
never do like I have done
to shun that house in New Orleans
they call the Rising Sun.
My mother she's a tailor;
she sold those new blue jeans.
My sweetheart, he's a drunkard, Lord, Lord,
drinks down in New Orleans.
The only thing a drunkard needs
is a suitcase and a trunk.
The only time he's satisfied
is when he's on a drunk.
Fills his glasses to the brim,
passes them around
only pleasure he gets out of life
is hoboin' from town to town.
One foot is on the platform
and the other one on the train.
I'm going back to New Orleans
to wear that ball and chain.
Going back to New Orleans,
my race is almost run.
Going back to spend the rest of my days
beneath that Rising Sun.
The Animals changed the narrator to a man:
There is a house in New Orleans
they call the Rising Sun.
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
and God I know I'm one.
My mother was a tailor,
sewed my new blue jeans.
My father was a gambling man
down in New Orleans.
Now the only thing a gambler needs
is a suitcase and a trunk.
And the only time he's satisfied
is when he's on a drunk.
Oh mother, tell your children
not to do what I have done,
spend your lives in sin and misery
in the House of the Rising Sun.
Well, I got one foot on the platform,
the other foot on the train.
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
to wear that ball and chain.