Songfacts®:

• Hugh Laurie is best known to most people for portraying Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist/antagonist of the Fox medical drama House. Laurie is also an enthusiastic and keen musician, playing the piano, guitar, drums, harmonica and saxophone. He has displayed his musical talents on several episodes of House, as well as on previous shows he starred in such as A Bit Of Fry & Laurie. In 2010 Laurie played piano as a special guest on Meatloaf's track "If I Can't Have You."
  
  After signing a contract with Warner Bros., Laurie released a blues album Let Them Talk, which was released initially in France on April 18, 2011 and later in the UK on May 9th. The opening track of the record is this American folksong of anonymous origin.
• "Saint James Infirmary" is based on an old English tune, "The Unfortunate Rake," that made its way over to America and was reborn. During an interview with Radio Times, Laurie was asked if he made this song the album's cornerstone as he likes the parallel with his own professional and personal journey? The English actor replied: "I do like that parallel. But I'm gonna come clean and say I've loved and been playing 'Saint James Infirmary' long before I knew anything of its origins.The thing is, I was quite aware that one of the expectations was that on this album I was gonna hide. I would probably have expected it myself: with a bit of help and a bit of artful management, you can surround yourself with brilliant players, and you can get someone to Autotune your voice - and have someone protect you. You can hide behind great players and great technology. You can make a perfectly serviceable piece of music without expressing yourself. And I thought, no. I'm not gonna do that. I'm going to come out naked and just have the piano and there's no Pro-Tools jiggey-pokery going on. It's just me and a piano."
  
  He added that this was the attraction in recording the album with minimal musical adornment, and in beginning it with this song. "That was the idea in my head. I wanted to be as naked and as vulnerable as I could be."
• The song's title is derived from St. James Hospital in London, a religious foundation for the treatment of leprosy. It was closed in 1532 when Henry VIII acquired the land to build St. James Palace. The lyrics tell the tale of a man explaining to the singer/narrator, at a bar, how he went down to St. James Infirmary and tragically found his girl (the so-called "baby") dead.
• Louis Armstrong made the song famous in his influential 1928 recording and another notable recording was by Van Morrison on the 2003 Grammy-nominated album, What's Wrong With This Picture?. Other performers of the tune include Cab Calloway, King Oliver, Artie Shaw, Big Mama Thornton, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, The Doors, Paul Butterfield, The Animals, and The White Stripes.