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
When the War Was On When the War Was On "When the War Was On" is a call and response blues song recorded in 1929 by Blind Willie Johnson and Willie B. Harris, who is thought to have been his first wife. Johnson plays bottleneck guitar, and sings throughout in his 'growl' (false bass) voice; Harris sings soprano. The war referred to is World War I (191418). The lyrics reference U.S. President Wilson (191321) and the German Kaiser; the United States entered the war in 1917. Unusually for Johnson, the song deals with a temporal rather than a spiritual subject. It shares tune and lyrics