"St. James Infirmary Blues" is an American folksong of anonymous origin. One of Louis Armstrong's several recordings of the song credits it to "Joe Primrose," but this was a pseudonym for Irving Mills, a musical agent and songwriter who is unlikely to have contributed lyrically, though he may have published an original arrangement. The song seems to have also been known early on as "The Gambler's Blues," and in this form the lyrics can be traced back as far as 1899. There is also evidence that the song is descended from an older Irish/British folk song, "The Unfortunate Rake", which speaks of a "St. James Hospital". This ballad is also the ancestor of the cowboy ballad "Streets of Laredo". Another possible origin is that the song is a derivation of the older English folk song "St. James Hospital," performed by John Langstaff, Douglas Kennedy and others.Notable performers of this song include Cab Calloway, *who can be heard singing it in the Betty Boop cartoon Snow White*; Louis Armstrong, "Spider" John Koerner, Jack Teagarden, Billie Holiday, Stan Kenton (who infused the breaks between verses with rival Woody Herman's "Blue Flame"), Lou Rawls, Bobby Bland, Danny Elfman who would perform the song nearly every night in the early Oingo Boingo days,Turk Murphy, Janis Joplin, The Doors who performed it in the middle of Light My Fire on occasion, The Animals, The Triffids, Dr. John (both solo and with Eddie Bo), Blues Creation with Carmen Maki, Doc Watson and more recently The White Stripes, the Stray Cats, the Tarbox Ramblers, Tom Jones with Jools Holland and Van Morrison. *Eric Clapton and Dr John performed a rendition of the song during a 1996 concert called "Duets"*. Arlo Guthrie has recently recorded a version with slightly different lyrics learned from Cisco Houston. Robert Crumb even released a version of it on a CD included in the 'R. Crumb Handbook'. Live versions appear on Joe Cocker's albums Something To Say (1972, also known as Joe Cocker), and Live in L.A. (1976), and on The Devil Makes Three's live album A Little Bit Faster and A Little Bit Worse (2007).The Bing Crosby musical Birth Of The Blues featured the song in 1941. In 2002, the song appeared in Osamu Tezuka's dixieland-influenced anime film Metropolis as arranged by Toshiyuki Honda. In 1981, Bob Dylan used the folk melody in his song "Blind Willie McTell" (released in 1991 on Dylan's Bootleg Series, Volumes 1-3), named for blues singer Willie McTell (who himself recorded a version of the song under the title "Dying Crapshooter's Blues"); the song includes a reference to the St. James Hotel. and more from the wiki*Eric Clapton & Dr John - St James Infirmary**Betty Boop in Snow White*with the Cab Calloway version(I was just going to use the song clip but after watching the cartoon I felt compelled to share it all)At work we were joking around about how many depressingly sad songs are loaded on my Ipod and when this came up I gave in.Any really sad songs to share?