"Big Fat Woman" - Rebirth Brass Band

SONG: “Big Fat Woman” (PDF)
ALBUM: Feel Like Funkin’ It Up
YEAR: 1989
LABEL: Rounder Records

Additional transcriptions:
New Birth Brass Band - D-Boy
Craig Klein - New Orleans Brass Band Music: Memories of The Fairview & Hurricane Band

As of 2022, Rebirth Brass Band’s second album Feel Like Funkin’ It Up is only available through digital streaming platforms. Originally released in 1989 on Rounder Records, the roughly 40-minute album was produced for vinyl and cassette formats that apparently have never been reissued. A CD version of the album was also produced - featuring the bonus track “Big Fat Woman” that utilizes a whoopin’ 5 minutes of extended formatting - and became the primary source for digital distribution. In 2010, Concord Music Group acquired the Rounder Records catalog, and thus any superfluous material regarding the original album’s packaging appears to have been lost in the corporate shuffle. It remains unclear if "Big Fat Woman” was printed in the CD liner notes, either as a bonus track or album material.

To the unsuspecting listener, “Big Fat Woman” sounds a lot like Young Tuxedo Brass Band clarinetist John Casimer’s “Whoopin’ Blues” but with lyrics and a shout section - perhaps that is all it actually is, the byproduct of repeated performances with some added levity. As such, the lyrics may have been passed around for years without proper credit and has since been retconned into the public domain. However, Treme Brass Band’s 1990 album I Got A Big Fat Woman, released by Sound Of New Orleans, contains what many musicians regard as the definitive recording of the tune and yet even the reissued album liner notes have no mention of the titular song or its origin. As of late 2022, the only proper writing credit for Rebirth’s “Big Fat Woman” has been given by the user-submitted resource, Discogs.com, which simply lists it as “Traditional.”

Recommended reading: Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans by Matt Sakakeeny. Published by Duke University Press

Here’s a YouTube video of Treme Brass Band trumpeter Kenneth Terry continuing this tradition with the Young Fellaz Brass Band: