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Spider in My Stew

song

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 19, 2024
Entity authorityQ24077865 ↗
Source-derived summary

"Spider in My Stew" is a song composed by Willie Dixon and first recorded by American blues musician Buster Benton. It is performed as a slow, minor-key blues, with Benton's impassioned vocal and B. B. King-influenced electric guitar playing. For the recording, Benton, on vocal and guitar, is joined by blues veterans Dixon on bass, Carey Bell on harmonica, Mighty Joe Young on guitar, and Billy Davenport on drums.

In 1970, the small Supreme Records label released the song on a single, with "Dangerous Woman" on the flip side (no A-side/B-side designations). When the Shreveport, Louisiana, Jewel Records released it again in 1974, it still failed to reach the Billboard charts, but it "gave Benton a taste of fame," according to biographer Bill Dahl.

The song was used as the title track for the well-regarded 1979 Benton album on Jewel subsidiary Ronn Records, Spider in My Stew; however, as the music journalist Tony Russell commented, Benton "never found another money spider." As Benton's best-known song, it is included on several anthology albums of Benton's music and various artists' compilations.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Spider in My Stew” as song. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Spider, Stew and song.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1970, 1974, 1979—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Spider, Stew and song providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Spider in My Stew”, the useful work is to connect “song” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 19, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q24077865. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1970, 1974 and 1979.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Spider in My Stew”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Spider in My Stew primary sources, Spider in My Stew archive and Spider research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Spider in My Stew”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Spider in My Stew” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.