In life, one encounters very few truths of the absolute sort. The sages of Hellas enumerate but three. The first: Everything flows, nothing abides. The second: Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. The third: All things can be reduced to moisture, whence they came. A fourth truth has been often attributed to Thales of Miletus, Whether this attribution is valid or not is of little matter, since the alleged truth was disproven two years ago by several brave women wearing Undie-Leggs. I, for one, applaud them. Kudos, the works.

But the-sages of HeHas knew nothing of the song whose title is “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee”; nor did they know that this song inspired more great recordings than any other song in the history of what people OR television refer to as the rock ’n’ roll field. We must excuse the sages, for they passed on long before the song we speak of; long, even, before television itself.

Granville McGhee, the author of “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” and much else, was born in 1917, in Knoxville, Tennessee. His elder, more famous, and less gifted brother, Brownie McGhee, was stricken with polio as a child. To get around, young Brownie built a wooden cart with wheels, and assigned his little brother the duty of pushing him along by means of a stick. Granville took to carrying the stick with him at all times, and thus became known as Stick McGhee. Already this story is interesting.

Stick began to play the guitar when he was about thirteen. He quit high school after his freshman year, and took a job at Eastman Kodak, where his dad worked. He left that job about 1940, traveling to Portsmouth, Virginia, and then to New York, where he joined the army soon after the United States declared war on Japan, in 1941. Driving a truck in a laundry unit, Stick was wounded in the Pacific. After further service in Japan and Korea, he returned home, a hero. This and a nickel enabled him to use a pay-phone.

In the army, Stick’s colored drinking buddies-had a song they would sing toward the close of their periodic excesses.

Drinkin’ that mess is our delight,

And when we get drunk, start fightin’ all night.

Knockin’ out windows and tearin’ down doors,

Drinkin’ half-gallons and callin’for more.

Drinkin’ wine, motherfucker, drinkin’ wine!

Goddam!

Drinkin’ wine, motherfucker, drinkin’ wine!

Goddam!

Drinkin’ wine, motherfucker,

drinkin’ wine!

Goddam!

Pass that bottle to me!

And so forth. In 1946, after the war, Stick and his brother Brownie, who had been making records since 1944, got together to cut a version of this cherished drinking song for Harlem Records, in New York. Stick cleaned the song up a bit, and called it “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee.” (Sam Theard, the black comedian and co-author of “Let The Good Times Roll,” had been using Spo-Dee-O-Dee as a stage name since the thirties, and had made a record called “Spo-Dee-O-Dee” for Vocalion, in 1937.)

Stick’s record went nowhere, but on February 14, 1949, he remade “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” for Atlantic. The record hit the R&B charts the following month and eventually rose to Number 3.

The first cover version of Stick’s record was by Lionel Hampton, featuring the great blues shouter Sonny Parker, on Decca. (Decca also bought Stick’s original 1946 recording from Harlem, and issued that.) Next came a version-by Wynonie Harris, recorded for King on the 13th of April. The final cover was a hillbilly bop rendition by Loy Gordon & His Pleasant Valley Boys, cut on August 23rd for" Stick’s label, Atlantic.

“Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” continued to be cut throughout the fifties: by Malcolm Yelvington, for Sun, in 1954; by Johnny Burnette, for Coral, in 1957; by Jerry Lee Lewis, for Sun, in 1959. (Jerry Lee cut the song again, for Smash, in 1964, and for Mercury, in 1973).

Although only two of these many versions—Wynonie Harris’ 1949 cover and Jerry Lee’s 1973 recording—achieved anything like the commercial success of the original, the odd thing is that they’re all magnificent; I can’t think of another song that exists in so many great varieties. And don’t give me any of that Hank Williams shit, either, because I don’t want to hear it.

Stick McGhee continued to make records for Atlantic, but his only other hit was an instrumental cover of the 1951 country hit, “Tennessee Waltz,” to which title he affixed the word “Blues.” There were some hot ones—“Drank Up All That Wine” and “Venus Blues,” in 1949; “Let’s Do It” and “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show,” in 1950—but they didn’t pay the bills. He even snuck away to cut a record for London, in early 1951 > while he was still with Atlantic. That failed, too.

In 1952 Stick moved from Atlantic to Essex, for one, miserable, failed record (“My Little Rose”); then'; in 1953, to King, where he made a lot of great rock ’n’ roll— “Whiskey, Women And Loaded Dice,” “Dealin’ From The Bottom,” “Jungle Juice,” “Double Crossin’ Liquor,” “Get Your Mind Out Of The Gutter”—but very little money . Leaving King in 1955, he cut a record for Savoy; but his heart was no longer in it.

Stick retired from the music business, but not from drink. In 1960, his brother convinced him to cut a record for Herald in New York. While both sides of that record, “Money Fever” and “Sleep-In Job,” were as nasty and fine a$ anything to be heard that year, they didn’t happen. Stick went back into retirement. Further back this time.

Stick McGhee died in the summer of 1961, of cancer. He was barely 44 years old. He didn’t have much when he went, but what he had he left to Brownie’s son. It was an old guitar, and within its chords and creaks and resonance, somewhere, lay the power of spo-dee-o-dee. That’s a fact.