This is one of the bestknown blues tunes of all time. Attributed to WC Handy. I'm playing it on tenor sax and clarinet.
According to Wikipedia, Handy said he had been inspired by a chance meeting with a woman on the streets of St. Louis distraught over her husband's absence, who lamented, "Ma man's got a heart like a rock cast in de sea", a key line of the song. Details of the story vary. Robert Palmer states that Handy encountered the melody in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1892, when he was out of work. It had numerous oneline verses "and they would sing it all night."

At the time of his death in 1958, Handy was earning royalties upwards of US $25,000 annually for the song. The original published sheet music is available online at the United States Library of Congress in a searchable database of AfricanAmerican music from Brown University.