Laura Smith (blues singer) Laura Smith (blues singer) Laura Smith (March 1882 – February 1932) was an American classic female blues and country blues singer. Songs she recorded include "Gonna Put You Right in Jail" and her version of "Don't You Leave Me Here". She led Laura Smith and her Wild Cats and also worked with Clarence Williams and Perry Bradford. Details of her life outside the music industry are scanty. The researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc state that she was born Loretta Bryant in Illinois in 1882. Other sources suggest that she was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, at an unknown date. In
He Was a Friend of Mine who first picked up the song from the Library of Congress recordings was Rolf Cahn. He recorded the song on his influential 1961 Folkways album "Rolf Cahn & Eric von Schmidt", where the song for the first time was titled "He Was a Friend of Mine". Bob Dylan picked up the song from the Cahn recording and made some changes to the song when he recorded it for his first album on November 20, 1961. However, Dylan's recording was not included in the album. It did show up on various Dylan bootleg albums which received wide distribution soon thereafter. That