[3] Jelly Roll Morton recollected hearing the song as a young boy sometime after 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana, when he performed with a spiritual quartet that played at funerals.
Older band members played "See See Rider" during get-togethers with their "sweet mamas" or as Morton called them "fifth-class whores".
Ma Rainey's rendition opens with the three couplet introduction credited to Lena Arant that explains why the singer is blue.
[9] Folklorists recorded regional variations in stanza patterns such as ABB and ABA in Texas versus AB in New Orleans.
[8] In 1943, a version by Wee Bea Booze reached number one on Billboard magazine's Harlem Hit Parade, a precursor of the rhythm and blues chart.
[16] Cash Box said that it is an "excellent re-working" in which the Animals play "the bluesy sturdie in an infectious, hard-pounding rollicking style.
[19] In 2004, Ma Rainey's "See See Rider" was selected for the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress to preserve its legacy for future generations.
[1] The induction statement noted that the song "became a standard recorded by countless artists in many genres [with] hit singles [and] many other versions by blues, soul, jazz, pop, country, and rock performers".
[21] John "Big Nig" Bray, the leader of a crew that hauled cypress logs from Louisiana swamps in the 1930s, borrowed the frame and tune of "See See Rider" for his "Trench Blues" (1934), a semi-autobiographical heroic blues ballad recounting the experience of an African American soldier in World War I, as recorded by Alan Lomax.
[23] There are many theories and conjectures about the origin and meaning of the title; none of them have been proven correct, and the song's complex history may make proof impossible.
In dirty blues songs, "easy rider" can also refer to a woman who had liberal sexual views, had been married more than once, or was skilled at sex.
Likewise, in jazz singer and guitarist Wee Bea Booze's version of "See See Rider Blues", which reached number one on the US Billboard R&B chart in 1943, the well audible lyrics are "now your girl come", hence addressing a man.
In this interpretation, rather than being directed to a male "easy rider", the song would be an admonition to a prostitute to give up her evil ways.