Double Dealing: Blues Song Guide

This guide covers the real and extensively documented blues tradition of songs about being cheated on and cheating, a theme "double dealing" describes about as plainly as any blues phrase can.

The clearest and earliest major example is "Double Crossing Blues," recorded in 1950 by the Johnny Otis Quintette with The Robins and a fourteen-year-old singer billed as Little Esther, released on Savoy Records. It became her debut single and shot to number one on the Billboard R&B chart, making her the youngest female singer to top that chart at the time. The song was credited on the original label to Johnny Otis, but songwriter Jessie Mae Robinson, the same Los Angeles-based writer behind "Cold Cold Feeling," sued over the credit and won, having the song legally recognized as her composition in 1950. Johnny Otis himself was a defining figure of the Los Angeles R&B and blues scene, making "Double Crossing Blues" a genuinely Southern California-rooted entry point into this theme.

A second strong, confirmed example from later in blues history is "Cheatin' in the Next Room," recorded by Z.Z. Hill for his 1982 Malaco Records album Down Home, written by George Jackson and Robert Alton Miller. It became an R&B chart hit, reaching the top 20, and AllMusic describes it as a quieter, more intimate counterpart to the album's better-known title track, "Down Home Blues," often cited as one of the most important blues singles of the 1980s. Where "Double Crossing Blues" plays its betrayal for brash, up-tempo bite, "Cheatin' in the Next Room" takes the slow-burn, Southern soul-blues route, with the singer overhearing infidelity happening literally on the other side of a wall.

Together these two verified songs sketch the emotional range a title like "Double Dealing" would likely occupy: somewhere between righteous, danceable anger and quiet, humiliated grief, both responses to the same basic betrayal that runs through decades of blues songwriting.

Stream "Double Crossing Blues" and "Cheatin' in the Next Room" through official Johnny Otis and Z.Z. Hill pages on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube. Continue to Don't Try to Explain or ahead to Drowning on Dry Land, and browse more songs at our blues music guide.