"Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" is a late-1920s blues song written by composer George Brooks and made famous by Bessie Smith.[1][2] In the song, a female narrator confesses the murder of a deceitful lover[3] and expresses her willingness to accept her punishment.[4][5] The song is notable for being among the selections officially banned from being played on radio by the British Broadcasting Corporation.[6]
The song, both in its original rendition and in cover versions, has been included in numerous albums as well as live performances. Profiling a new volume of Smith's recordings, a reviewer comments, "Some of her most deservedly famous records are here ... as well as some that ought to be, like 'Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair";[7] another reviewer also singled out that as one of two particularly "terrific numbers" that made Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Vol. 3 an improvement over the previous volumes.[8]
Dinah Washington covered the song with "her own peculiar intensity," a reviewer notes in writing about the Washington biography Queen; "her recording ... can give a listener chills — especially when Dinah declares, with her strong, deliberate enunciation, 'Burn me, 'cause I don't care.' "[9] A 1984 preview of a Philadelphia folk festival highlighted the song as an example of "Dave Bromberg's selection of musical esoterica" for his performances,[10] while a critic listing his favorite death-penalty-themed tunes remarked that Bromberg's take, "in a neo-Dixieland style, even better captur[ed] its wicked humor."[1] Bromberg continued performing the song well into the 21st century, with a 2011 concert review listing the song among "classic Bromberg faves."[11] A reviewer praising a low-band radio station for its unusual programming noted "an inspired couple of hours of Prisoner [sic] songs, ranging from Lefty Frizzell's majestic, gothic tale of love and murder "Long Black Veil" to Bessie Smith's touching plea, 'Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair."[12]
Tracy Nelson covered the song for her 1995 album I Feel So Good,[4][13][14][15][16] in a performance that reviewer Paul Harris said "summons a perfectly Gothic essence of dread that few blues singers these days convincingly bring to the form."[3] Harris interviewed the singer later that year for a piece that begins with a quote from the lyrics: "Judge, your honor, hear my plea / Before you open up your court / I don't want no sympathy / Because I cut my good man's throat," calling the verse a "dire lyric" that "recalls for us that the blues are, in essence, a gothic tradition."[17] Nelson, whose rendition Harris called "satirical"[3] and a Chicago Sun-Times reviewer called "surprisingly playful,"[18] dedicated the song on at least one occasion in 1996 to O. J. Simpson.[19] Nelson's version also appeared on a 2001 Rounder Records compilation album of women blues singers, Any Woman's Blues,[20] and in her 2003 live-performance album recorded at West Tennessee Detention Center, Live from Cell-Block D,[21] leading one favorable reviewer to comment on the "temerity" of singing this song in a prison venue, chalking the choice up to "her fabled perversity."[22]
In 2004, artist Eden Brent included the song as one of the tracks for her debut album Something Cool, in what a reviewer termed "notably a great go at 'Send Me to the 'lectric Chair'" in highlights of the covers on the release.[23] Actor-singer Tyne Daly included "'Lectric Chair" in her 2010 musical live show "Songs";[24] reviewer David Wiegand called the performance "one of the highlights [in a] show with nothing but highlights," saying it was "suitably low-down without lapsing into a parody of the blues"[25] and Richard Houdek characterized as "a brassy, no-regrets account."[26]
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