Johnny Rivers – Seventh Son

In the 1980s I worked at a printing place and I was a stock guy basically. I was in a locked cage full of printer and copier parts and my job was to put the place in order. They never had a stock boy before and I organized everything. When I was there I would listen to an oldies channel that played 50s – 70s songs and I learned about Johnny Rivers that way with Poor Side of Town, Slow Dancing, Summer Rain, Secret Agent Man, and many more including Seventh Son. 

This is a song written by the blues legend Willie Dixon. Willie Mabon did the first version of this song back in 1955. The song is based on the folklore that a seventh son of a seventh son has mystical powers, such as prophecy and healing. The blues version never really hit big but this pop/rock version by Rivers did. 

Rivers recorded live at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, like many of his early hits. River’s version of it brought it to a mainstream audience. Rivers was different than many of his peers, he successfully mixed blues, rock, and pop for a teen audience. Rivers never wrote much but when he did…it was fantastic. He wrote his biggest hit Poor Side Of Town but only wrote a few more songs in his career to date. 

The song was released in 1965 and peaked at #1 in Canada and #7 on the Billboard 100.  It came from the album  Meanwhile Back at the Whisky à Go Go and it peaked at #21 on the Billboard Album Charts. 

Willie Dixon: The Seventh Son is kind of a historical idea. In New Orleans and Algiers, Louisiana, they have these people calling themselves born for good luck because they’re the seventh sister or seventh brother or the seventh child. The world has made a pattern out of this seven as a lucky number. Most people think the seventh child has the extra wisdom and knowledge to influence other people.

Seventh Son

Everybody talkin’ ’bout the seventh son
In the whole wide world there is only one

And I’m the one, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I can tell your future, it will come to pass
I can do things to you make your heart feel glad
Look in the sky, predict the rain
Tell when a woman’s got another man

I’m the one, oh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I can talk these words that will sound so sweet
They will even make your little heart skip a beat
Heal the sick, raise the dead
Make the little girls talk outta their heads

I’m the one, oh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I can talk these words that will sound so sweet
They will even make your little heart skip a beat
Heal the sick, raise the dead
And make the little girls talk outta their heads

I’m the one, oh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I’m the one, hey, hey
I’m the one
Oh, I’m the one, babe
Ooh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

54 thoughts on “Johnny Rivers – Seventh Son”

  1. Great Willie Dixon song and I love that line, “I make love to you and then you cry for more.” Johnny Rivers did a great cover. Len Dawson, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs was the seventh son of a seventh son.

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    1. I would like to find out more about him. His songs were adapted for blues and pop so effortlessly. I first heard of him through the Stones version of “It’s All Over Now”

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  3. I’ll always associate Rivers with my being a kid in the ‘60s, traveling in my parents’ station wagon on vacation, and hearing “Poor Side of Town” and “Baby I Need Your Lovin’” all over AM radio. Good memories.

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  4. “I can heal the sick, raise the dead & make little girls talk outta’ their heads…I’m one…yeeeessss I’m the one. I’m the one, I’m the one the one they call the 7th Son.” For me, that’s my favorite Johnny Rivers hit from his initial foray into stardom in ’64 & ’65. I wish that I still had those 1st 2 original albums at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go. I wonder how much those would be worth today…lol. Good one Max!

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    1. There’s a video from ‘Where the Fun Is’ television show from when that song was released & he was promoting it. Bill Cosby hosted that episode & they were on the beach & he’s wearing a sailors hat lip synching that hit with his Strat guitar & with girls dancing on each of his sides. Classic! Check it out if you can find it, it’s on YouTube.

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    2. I don’t know but I would think quite a bit. They sounded great live! They did sweeten it up a little in the studio but still…they did well.

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      1. That’s what I’ve read over the years that it wasn’t actually live that they made it sound live. But, it’s still a classic & all of those ‘go-go’ hits that he had at the beginning of his career with those ladies singing background.

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      2. Oh they played there live but they overdubbed any mess ups in the studio over it….but 99 percent of other artists did that back then. One because the equipment didn’t always pick up things.

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      4. Remember that first ALIVE album by KISS? It was recorded live but they went back and practically replaced most of the separate tracks in the studio…

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      8. Now the amps and guitars Carl….in my opinion are much better than todays…but the PA’s back then sucked though. Believe me because I have a 1971 Kustom PA…but I have several 60s and 70s Kustom Amps (CCR used them…the black cushion amps) that I would NOT trade for new ones.

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      12. lol… no I just missed a red metal flake one someone was selling. My buddy and I went around buying them up around 7-8 years ago. Smart thing because their prices were down at the time for some reason.

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  6. one of my prized possessions is a live Johnny Rivers album….

    that song always reminds of a song by Roger Miller with the line I’m the 7th son of a 7th son, pappa was a pistol I’m a son of a gun..?

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      1. I was really young when Roger Miller was King of the Road, but my parents had parties at our house when I was younger that turned into jam sessions, so I learned all the words to songs by Miller, Hank Williams, Leadbelly and Fats Domino …that all happened after I was told to go to bed, but they’d make the house shake so I had not choice…..

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      2. That sounds like a lot of fun. He financed a hotel in Nashville called The King of the Road…so I knew his music quite well….those are some great artists you listened to…..when you were “sleeping” lol

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  7. I much prefer the Willie Dixon version – when he eventually starts singing!

    Johnny Rivers sounded like he was channeling British Invasion bands, most of whom would have done this better, in my view.

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    1. I know….it took him a little while to start it up. I never knew what to think of Rivers. He was an in between…a pop star but he did have great taste in his covers…like Secret Agent Man

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  8. learned a bit about the idea behind ‘the seventh son’, cool! I like Johnny Rivers, this one’s not my fave but it’s quite good. He didn’t have a lot of hit singles, but most that he did were great , esp. ‘Poor side of town’ and “summer Rain’… great guitar on those records too.

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  9. Willie Dixon is the Poet Laureate of the Blues, and in his day could play some damn bass!

    That’s Carey Bell on the harp. There was (I think still is) a club on the North Side called Biddy Mulligan’s that used to have blues bands on the weekends, one of which was the Bob Riedy Blues Band, and Carey Bell played with him. Amazing harp player. He had a trick where he could make a ghost sound (“WHOOOOOWoo Woo Woo!”) come out of it.

    One day I was at a record store and “The Best of Johnny Rivers” was on sale, so I bought it. It stayed on my turntable for months at a time. He is really, really good. He had a record label and signed The Fifth Dimension to their first contract, so he was a good judge of talent. He opened for Roy Orbison when we saw them in Chicago, and he was just fantastic. “Seventh Son” was on that album. Another good version is Climax Blues Band’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXzF5RNxTC0

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    1. I like that Climax Blues Bands version. That rocks it up quite a bit. It’s funny because people know them more by the pop hits they had…very good pop hits but not blues.
      I want to check Dixon out more…

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    2. (Silly trivial story; In my High School rt class we were ‘allowed’ to design an album cover by our unimaginative paint-by-the-numbers old fart teacher, and so I painted up something psychedelicish and used the big bold title ‘The Climax Blues Band.’ I wasn’t allowed to display it and received a D- and a black mark on my report. Talk about stifling a young lads creative output?!)

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  11. You packed a lot into that take. I have a soft spot for Rivers. Mose Allison has another version I dig. Willie Mabon had some good tune “Im Mad’ being one. On a Crumb vibe check out the animation to the Willie take. Funny. ;Sing Beast Sing’

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  13. Lotta roads lead to Willie Dixon. Of course I know the Johnny Rivers version best. I think he’s great. My older siblings had some of his 45s. I remember the picture sleeve for “Poor Side Of Town” in particular, where he’s walking through some trees. My mother always got a kick out of Roger Miller, she thought he was so funny. I still have a Greatest Hits vinyl album of his that she ordered from the record club way back when. Good memories today.

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    1. I agree on that. The first I heard of him was the Stones cover of I’m All Over Now.
      Rivers has a lot of songs I like…he had good tastes in picking his songs.
      It’s hard not to like Miller.

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  14. Great song. I think it’s hard to beat Willie Dixon who to me is the one here. That said, kudos to Johnny Rivers who did a neat job with his rendition. I also like the recording by Willie Mabon who added a nice dose of jazz to the song. Good stuff all around!

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  15. When you wrote about being locked up in a cage at work I instantly thought of Louie from Taxi (tv show)in his dispatcher cage. haha..
    Cool you were expanding your musical horizons listening to an oldies station back than…

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