"Top of the World" was first recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks in Shreveport, Louisiana on February 17, 1930.  On December 15th that same year they recorded it for Okeh records as "Sitting On Top Of The World No. 2" at the King Edward Hotel in Jackson, Mississippi.  Most likely it was Walter Vincson singing and playing the guitar and Lonnie Chatmon on violin.

The personnel of the band changed from time to time, but the Mississippi Sheiks was primarily the Chatmon family band with as many as 11 members playing a variety of instruments.  They were from the community of Bolton, Mississippi between Jackson and Vicksburg.  The family Patriarch was Henderson Chatmon. 

We had planned to record in the train station across the street, but it was just starting renovation.  So, we asked a couple of policemen on Capitol Street if we might set up our equipment back in the doorway next to the bus stop to get in out of the wind.

Every year our high school band would go to state band contest in Jackson.  When I was in the 8th grade our band stayed at the King Edward.  The King was like visiting another world.  It had huge interior columns and high ceilings, a marble staircase and the only escalator I'd ever seen other than the one at the Sears and Roebuck store in Memphis.  I only got to ride the Sears escalator once a year when our family would go to the Mid-South fair.  We spent two nights at the King Edward, and I had mastered the escalator by the end of band contest.

During our recording session at the King Edward Eddie told me of a Rush party he attended here the summer before his freshman year at college.  "There was a banquet hall through these doors behind me, and there was this guy wearing a blue and white sear sucker suit with no socks and a pair of white sneakers.  I thought that was the coolest thing."

These are the windows to the room where I stayed with 5 other roommates.  I remember because we had never seen a street sweeping machine before seeing one from these windows.  One of my roommates climbed out on this ledge during the night.  I never really found out why or where he went, but I do know he's now a Methodist minister.

Still structurally sound, the King Edward Hotel has fallen from the top of the world where law makers once fashioned state laws in caucus rooms, where musicians triumphed and youngsters stood saucer eyed to glimpse opulence.  For sale signs now garner its doors as the King confronts an uncertain future.  Vandals and neglect tear at its vitals.  It's days of beauty now abandoned to roost pigeons.