The jazz pianist and singer Mose Allison released it as a single in 1959 and on an album in 1964, calling it one of his "featured numbers".
[1] Johnny Rivers recorded the song as the lead track for his album Meanwhile Back at the Whisky à Go Go in 1965.
[2] He noted that Mabon stuck to his arrangement, unlike others who recorded the song, and commented on its background: The Seventh Son is kind of a historical idea.
[3] In the early 1960s, Johnny Rivers recorded several albums at the Whisky a Go Go, a popular music venue in West Hollywood, California.
In an AllMusic album review, Bruce Eder noted, "[On] the opening track, 'Seventh Son' – Rivers takes an approach that manages to intersect with swamp rock, white soul, and garage punk, all neatly wrapped up in three minutes so potent that it shot to the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100.