This post was inspired by a Twitter conversation I was having with Sidewalk Hustle about the elusive track “Sea Lion Woman”

I’ve been a fan of the House version of this song for as long as I can remember (maybe mid-teens), but with some many versions it’s hard to track which is the version I’m in search of.

Let’s start at the beginning.

As the Wikipedia page states, no one knows exactly where the song came from but it seems to have originated somewhere in the Southern United States. The first recording of the song was made by Herbert Halpert back in 1939. Halpert was a major in Anthropology at Columbia University where his studies took him to research American folklore, something that he became interested in during his teenage years. His recording captured the voices of Walter Shipp’s (a minister) daughters’ as they chanted the basic phrases of the song. This lead to the beginning of many covers of the song, with the first by John Lomax.

Over the years there have been numerous covers by artists such as Ollabelle, Chaney Sims, Teddy Douglas & Margaret Grace, and Masters At Work,  under many different names (Sea Lion Woman, Sea-Line Woman, See [the] Lyin’ Woman, She Lyin’ Woman, See-Line Woman, or C-Line Woman) but none of these would be possible if it wasn’t for the interpretation by the legendary Nina Simone done in 1964.

This version in my opinion is great because she just takes ownership of the song and gives it so much life that you can’t help but love it.

Sometimes when someone takes a song that is loved by many and tries to redo it, people tend to frown because it doesn’t live up to expectations or it’s really just that bad. In comes Fiest. In 2007, just like what Nina Simone did, Fiest took the song and made it her own, injecting her own stylistic taste on an already classic song. I was already a fan of Fiest at that point because of her album “Let It Die”, so when her album “The Reminder” came out, I had to give it a listen.

So this is where my journey ended with this song, but not without a happy ending. After so many years I have finally found the version of this song I’ve liked since my teens (while typing up this post might I add).
Who knew it would’ve been called “C Lime Woman” ??

See you on the dancefloor