External links
- "Sister Kate" lyrics
- Archived April 11, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
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"I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate", often simply "Sister Kate", is an up-tempo jazz dance song written by Armand J. Piron and published in 1922. The lyrics are narrated in the first person by Kate's sister, who sings about Kate's dancing and her wish to emulate it. She laments that she's not quite "up to date", but believes that dancing the Shimmy like "Sister Kate" will rectify this and let her impress "all the boys in the neighborhood" as well.
Kid Ory recorded the song with alternative lyrics by Louis Armstrong in Denmark on November 13, 1959, though these lyrics were never used in the US. Armstrong claimed he had written the song and sold it for $50. According to Armstrong, Kate was a murdered brothel madame named Katie Townsend.
Early recordings listed at Discogs include 1922 sides by Mary Straine and Joseph Smith's Jazz Band on Black Swan Records; The Virginians on Victor; and The Original Memphis Five, as an instrumental, on Pathé Actuelle. Vocalist Anna Jones recorded it accompanied by Fats Waller on piano in 1923. Arrangements ranged from big-band jazz to the Alabama Jug Band in the 1930s, a precursor to jug-band revival versions in the 1960s by Dave Van Ronk and Jim Kweskin.
The song arrived in the 1960s and 1970s folk scene thanks to Dave Van Ronk, who recorded it twice — on In the Tradition and on Dave Van Ronk and the Ragtime Jug Stompers — and Jim Kweskin, who made it part of a "Sister Kate's Night Out" medley on his Relax Your Mind album with Mel Lyman and Fritz Richmond. In 1967, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band included it on their eponymous album, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (album).
The song has been performed and recorded by many artists over the years, including:
David Bowie used to pair this song with an updated version of the Flares' 1960 doo-wop song "Foot Stompin'" during the Diamond Dogs Tour, as heard on the compilation Rarestonebowie. Guitarist Carlos Alomar blessed the update with a riff that became Bowie's hit "Fame", co-written with John Lennon. A passage from the song is also used in the poem Interview, written by Vijay Seshadri.
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