Three Early Examples of "Rock Island Line" (with lyrics)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post showcases three early examples of the song "Rock Island Line". The featured examples are Kelly Pace and other men [prison inmates] (1934), unnamed men [prison inmates] (1939), and Lead Belly (1944). The lyrics to those renditions of this song are included in this post.

The content of this post are presented for folkloric, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the composers of these songs. Thanks also to all those featured in these examples. And thanks to the sound file and video producers and publishers of these examples on YouTube.

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FEATURED EXAMPLES & LYRICS
These examples are presented in chronological order based on their recording dates with the oldest dated example given first.

Example 1: Original 1934 John Lomax recording of 'Rock Island Line' by Kelly Pace and Prisoners


Jan Tak, Uploaded on Sep 10, 2011

In 1934 John Lomax with the help of Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) made the first two recordings of "Rock Island Line", a song that would become world-famous later. A tall tale in rhyme, the song's subject is a train so fast that it arrives at its destination in Little Rock (at 8:49) before its departure from Memphis (at "half past nine").

They arrived in Arkansas in late September and worked first in Little Rock and then at the Tucker and Cummins prison farms to the south. In recording the second version they for the first time encountered Kelly Pace - a petty criminal but an outstanding prison singer. (Pace would eventually contribute more than thirty performances to the Library of Congress archives.)

Lomax made additional recording trips to Arkansas prisons in 1939 and 1942, unaccompanied by Ledbetter. Pace was a free man at the time of the 1939 visit, but Lomax collected a third version of "The Rock Island Line," this time in Cummins Prison. Listen to that recording here: http://youtu.be/5qWpAgoJHUk

By 1942, Pace was back in stir, sent up for forty-two years for stealing a car, and once again he was the star, performing some twenty-six songs as a soloist or member of a larger group. One of these is a fourth performance of "The Rock Island Line," the last version collected in Arkansas by Lomax.

In the meantime Ledbetter immediately recognized the potential of the tune and eventually played a major role in making it famous. He recorded it many times, first for folksong collectors at the Library of Congress in 1937 and later for commercial labels (RCA Victor in 1940 and Capitol in 1944, among others).
-snip-
LYRICS: ROCK ISLAND LINE (Kelly Pace Version)

Chorus:
I said the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road
I said the Rock Island Line is the road to ride
I said the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road
If you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it.
Buy your ticket at the station on the Rock Island Line.
Well, Jesus died to save me all of my sins
Oh well a glory to God we gonna meet Him again

Chorus
Oh well the train left Memphis at half past nine
It made it back to Little Rock at eight forty nine.
Chorus

Well, Jesus died to save me all of my sins
Oh well a glory to God we gonna meet Him again

Chorus
-snip-
Transcription by Azizi Powell from this recording. Additions and corrections are welcome.

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Example #2: Original 1939 John and Ruby Lomax recording - Rock Island Line



Jan Tak Uploaded on Jun 27, 2011

Between March 31, 1939 and June 14, 1939 John Avery Lomax and his wife Ruby Terrill Lomax recorded approximately 25 hours of folk music (from more than 300 performers) in their "Southern States Recording Trip" for the US Library of Congress. This is one of the original recordings of "Rock Island Line", which later became famous through singers like Kelly Pace, Leadbelly, and Lonnie Donegan.
-snip-
The lyrics to this version are very similar to those found in the Kelly Pace recording in 1937with the exception of the verse between 1:03=1:09 in that video.*

*Thanks to slam 2011 for her possible transcription of the lines that are sung from 1:03 to 1:09:
"'Oh we have engine now an' fireman too/We got a (purty good -?) an' a brakeman too'".

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Example #3: Roots of Blues -- Lead Belly „Rock Island Line"



Slowtubbi, Uploaded on Jul 18, 2008

Recorded: 1944

Huddie William Ledbetter, (January, 1888 -- December 6, 1949) was an American folk and blues musician, notable for his clear and forceful singing, his virtuosity on the twelve string guitar, and the rich songbook of folk standards he introduced.
He is best known as Leadbelly or Lead Belly. Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly," he himself spelled it "Lead Belly." This is also the usage on his tombstone, as well as the Lead Belly Foundation.
-snip-
LYRICS: ROCK ISLAND LINE
(as performed by Lead Belly)

[Chorus]
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,
Oh that Rock Island Line is that road to ride,
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,

If you want to ride, you got to ride it like you find it,
Get your ticket at the station on the Rock Island Line.
Jesus died to save our sins--hooray to God,
We're going to meet him again!

[Chorus]
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,
Oh that Rock Island Line is that road to ride,
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road

I may be right and I may be wrong,
You are going to miss me when I'm gone!

[Chorus]
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,
Oh that Rock Island Line is that road to ride,
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road

A, B, C, W, X, Y and Z
Cats in the cupboard, but they don't see me!

[Chorus]
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road,
Oh that Rock Island Line is that road to ride,
Oh that Rock Island Line is a mighty good road

Source: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/leadbelly/rock+island+line_20302510.html
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Lead Belly - "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (also known as "Black Girl" and "In The Pines") lyrics, information, and comments

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post presents song lyrics and a sound file example of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (also known as "Black Girl" and "In The Pines" as sung by Lead Belly. This post also includes information & comments about this song from the Mudcat folk music forum and a comment from that sound file's viewer comment thread.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown composers of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" ("Black Girl", "In The Pines"). Thanks also to the collectors of this song and thanks to Lead Belly for his renditions of this song. Thanks to the publisher of this sound file on YouTube and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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SHOWCASE EXAMPLE: Lead Belly - Where Did You Sleep Last Night? (1944) (TRUE STEREO)



Boblyblitzbob, Uploaded on Feb 12, 2010

I used my forensic software to split the guitar from vocals in this classic recording. I then eq'd it and remixed the stems.
Probably one of the oldest songs in stereo.
-snip-
Here's a comment from this sound file's viewer comment thread*
Antonio Iglesias, 2014
"Huddie Ledbetter AKA Lead Belly: 1/20/1888

- In true songster fashion, this musician traveled throughout the United States with his iconic twelve-string guitar and expertly performed music in the genres of folk, gospel, and a number of blues styles (namely country and Delta). Though he often found himself incarcerated, he spent his time as a prisoner learning songs that he would perform throughout the rest of his life; on more than one occasion he even used his music as a means of early release. “Goodnight Irene”, “Black Betty”, and “In the Pines” (aka “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”) are just a few examples of his recordings that have gone on to influence artists from Peter Seeger and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Nirvana and Old Crow Medicine Show."

* WARNING: This sound file viewer comment thread contains a number of comments that include profanity and offensive language including a number of uses of the fully spelled out form of what is now commonly known as "the n word".

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LYRICS OF ONE VERSION OF "IN THE PINES" THAT LEAD BELLY SUNG

Black girl, black Girl, dont lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, In the pines, Where the sun never shine
I shivered the whole night through.

Black girl, black girl, where will you go
Im going where the cold wind blows
In the pines, In the pines, Where the sun never shine
I will shiver the whole night through.

Black girl, black Girl, dont lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, In the pines, Where the sun never shine
I shivered the whole night through.

My Husband was a Railroad man
Killed a mile and a half from here
His head, was found, In a drivers wheel
And his body hasn't never been found.

Black girl, black girl, where will you go
Im going where the cold wind blows
You called me to weep and you called me to moan
You called me to leave my home

Source: http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858607935/

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INFORMATION & SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT THIS SONG
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=1439

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: In the Pines (Joan Baez/Leadbelly?)
From: autoharpbob
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 10:01 AM

"Great version by Leadbelly, but the consensus seems to be the song predates him - like most around that time (Carter Family!) they were singing songs they already knew and claiming them for their own. Heard Sarah McQuaid do a haunting version of this recently."

**
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: In the Pines (Joan Baez/Leadbelly?)
From: bobad
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 11:27 AM

"Leadbelly also sang it as "My girl, my girl......." "...
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: In the Pines (Joan Baez/Leadbelly?)

**
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 12:06 PM

"Yes, bobad, he used to sing it that way sometimes and I heard he was none to keen to do so. White singers such as Cisco Houston used to sing 'My Girl' although Lonnie Donegan recorded it is 'Black Girl' again. Both superb versions. It's sometimes listed as both of these titles as well as 'Where Did You sleep Last Night?'

... The song always sounds like it's part of a longer one as is 'Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet'"

**
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: In the Pines (Joan Baez/Leadbelly?)
From: Goose Gander
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 03:57 PM

"More of a cluster of songs and floating verses than a song. Common to black and white singers in the American South in the early twentieth century. I would be very surprised if anyone could find an 'original' of this one."

**
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: In the Pines (Joan Baez/Leadbelly?)
From: Q
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 06:00 PM

" "Black Girl" seems to be the earliest version collected; 1917 by Sharp; only one verse:

Black Girl, black girl, don't lie to me
Where did you stay last night?
"I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines,
And shivered when the cold wind blows."

According to Wikipedia, the "longest train" verses were added and recorded in 1925. In a 1970 thesis, some 160 permutations of the song appear."
-snip-
Here's the link to the Wikipedia page for this song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Pines

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: In the Pines (Joan Baez/Leadbelly?)
From: Sarah McQuaid
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 10:05 AM

..."Also known as 'Black Girl' and 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night', this song is often credited to Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly (1888-1949), but in fact it dates back to at least the 1870s, and is probably Southern Appalachian in origin. Cecil Sharp collected it from a Miss Lizzie Abner in Oneida, Kentucky, on 18 August, 1917, under the name 'Black Girl' and comprising just four lines:

Black girl, black girl, don't lie to me
Where did you stay last night?
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines
And shivered when the cold wind blows

In Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong (2000), Norm and David Cohen write:

Two years later, Newman I. White obtained four lines that a student of his had heard sung by a black railroad work gang in Buncombe County, North Carolina:

The longest train I ever saw
Was on the Seaboard Air Line,
The engin pas' at a ha' pas' one,
And the caboose went pas' at nine.

In 1921-22, Frank C. Brown obtained a long text from Parl Webb of Pineola, Avery County, North Carolina, that included both the "in the pines" couplet and the "longest train" couplet ... during the years 1921-22, Brown did obtain recordings of "In The Pines" – the earliest ones to be made"...
-snip-
This discussion threads also includes other lyrics to this song, including the lyrics of a version sung by Joan Baez.

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Lead Belly's And Several Other Versions Of "Give The Fiddler A Dram" (Examples & Comments)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post provides several text examples, one sound file, and one video example of the Old Time Music fiddler song "Give The Fiddler A Dram".

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, historical, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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INFORMATION ABOUT "GIVE THE FIDDLER A DRAM" (tune and song)
From http://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Give_the_Fiddler_a_Dram_(2)
"GIVE THE FIDDLER A DRAM [2]. AKA - "Fiddler a Dram," "Fiddler's Dram." Unrelated to "Dance All Night." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia... One version of this tune was played at a 1931 LaFollette, north-east Tennessee fiddlers' contest, according to a local newspaper of the time. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. It was also listed by the Fayette Northwest Alabamian of August 19th, 1929, as one of the tunes likely to be played at an upcoming fiddlers' convention (Cauthen, 1990), and was recorded in 1939 for the Library of Congress by Herbert Halpert from the playing of Mississippi fiddler W.E. Claunch. Gerry Milnes, in the notes for his album "Hell Up Coal Creek," writes that this tune was one of old Tom Dillon's (of Webster County, W.Va.) showpiece tune. Dillon was a character who busked around sandlot baseball games for drinks and tips, often dancing while he played. Another trick of his was to play with two bows strapped together. "Girl with the Blue Dress On" is a related tune."...

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EXAMPLES OF "GIVE THE FIDDLER A DRAM"
Example #1: Lead Belly - Dig a Hole & Tight Like That



sherpa285, Uploaded on Dec 10, 2011
-snip-
From Google Books The Life & Legend Of Leadbelly by Charles K. Wolfe, ‎Kip Lornell, p. 20
“One old fiddle song- borrowed from the American fiddler tradition, not necessarily from whites- was Leadbelly’s version of the familiar “Give The Fiddler A Dram” which he called “Gwine Dig A Hole Put The Devil In”. This hard driven breakdown with simple expandable verses could easily be drawn into a fifteen- or-twenty minute set. Whites have often sung about giving the fiddler a dram of liquor; the line among black performers dealt with digging a hole to put the devil in...

Gwine* dig a hole put the devil in
Gwine dig a hole put the devil in
Gwine dig a hole
Gwine dig a hole
Letta dig a hole**
Letta dig a hole**

Yee ha! They all clappin and shoutin. The devil comin now. He don't know what it's all about, but they do.

Gwine dig a hole
Gwine dig a hole
Let me dig a hole to put the devil in
Let me dig a hole
Let the devil in
Let the devil in

Then they start

Gimme little bit of dram***
Little bit of dram
Little bit of dram
Little bit of dram

When the boss is gone they startin

I don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
I don't give a damn...
-snip-
*Gwine is a no longer used Southern regional (USA) dialectic word which means "gonna".

**This word sounds like "pole" but I think that Lead Belly meant "hole".

***dram - a portion of an alcoholic drink

This transcription is from a United States Library of Congress recording of an interview with Huddie Ledbetter that was conducted by Alan Lomax. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/12/lead-belly-dig-hole-put-devil-in-its.html for the complete lyrics with Lead Belly's comments. My opinions about the meaning of that rendition of "Give The Fiddler A Dram" are included in the comment section below.

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Example #2: 14 PertNearSandstone 2011-04-09 Give The Fiddler A Dram



tapermark, Uploaded on May 13, 2011

Pert Near Sandstone live at the Goodfoot Lounge in Portland, Oregon on 4/9/2011 performing Give The Fiddler A Dram.
-snip-
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pert_Near_Sandstone
"Pert Near Sandstone is a bluegrass band from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, and part of the Minnesota Roots Music scene"...
Click http://www.reverbnation.com/pertnearsandstone for more information about this band.

Here's my partial transcription of that rendition. Additions and corrections are welcome.

Dance all night with a bottle in my hand [3x]
Just go give the fiddler a dram*

Jawbone walk and jawbone talk
Jawbone eat with a knife and fork
Oh jawbone you better get along
Here comes Sally with the red dress on
Who’s been here since she’s been gone
Pretty little girl with the red dress on
She took it off and Jenny put it on
Here comes Sally with the big boots on
-snip-
Italics mean that I'm not sure about those words.
-snip-
It occurs to me that line "jawbone walk and jawbone talk" refers to the man who plays the jawbone. Understanding that that line refers to the jawbone player makes sense out of the subsequent line of that verse - except that there's another verse about putting a jawbone on a fence and haven't seen it since. That undoubtedly was an actual jaw bone.

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Example #3 - #4 from http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=56403
"Lyr Req: Give the Fiddler a Dram"

Example #3 (posted by Cluin 03 Feb 03 - 08:01 PM)

From the album "Atlantic Bridge" by Jane Rothfield & Allan Carr (with Martin Hadden), 1987 Green Linnet Records

FIDDLER A DRAM
(Trad. Arr. Rothfield & Carr)

My dog gone, Jimmy come along
Here comes Sammy with the red shoes on
He took `em off and I put `em on
Here comes Tommy with the big boots on
He took `em off and I put `em on
Here comes Sammy with the red dress on
He took it off, I put it on
Twenty long years since he's been gone

Got me a job, sittin' on a fence
Haven't seen a damn thing since
Worked all night with a bottle in my hand
Come on give the fiddler a dram

Fiddler a dram, Fiddler a dram
Come on give the fiddler a dram
Fiddler a dram, Fiddler a dram
Come on give the fiddler a dram

Some drink wine, some drink water
Come on give the fiddler a quarter
I drink whisky; it makes me holler
Come on give the fiddler a swaller
Got me a job, sittin' on a fence
Haven't done a damn thing since
Work all night with a fiddle in my hand
Come on give the fiddler a dram

Fiddler a dram, Fiddler a dram
Come on give the fiddler a dram
Fiddler a dram, Fiddler a dram
Come on give the fiddler a dram

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Example #4 (posted by Bee-dubya-ell, Date: 03 Feb 03 - 09:25 PM)

I have a cassette recording of a radio program that was taped at a festival in Indiana in the 70's. Indiana fiddler Dan Gellert does "Give the Fiddler a Dram" on it. Here are the lyrics he uses:

Dance all night with a bottle in my hand
Good God almighty give the fiddler a dram

Who's been here since I've been gone
Pretty little girl with a red dress on

My name is Sam and I don't give a damn
I can get to Hell just as quick as you can

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RELATED LINK
http://www.ceolas.org/cgi-bin/ht2/ht2-fc2/file=/tunes/fc2/fc.html&style=&refer=&abstract=&ftpstyle=&grab=&linemode=&max=250?give+the+fiddler+a+dram The Fiddler's Companion: "Give The Fiddler A Dram".

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Thanks to these musicians/singers for their renditions of and recollections of "Give The Fiddler A Dram". Thanks to all those who I quoted in this post.

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Visitors comments are welcome.

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Lead Belly - "Gonna Dig A Hole Put The Devil In" (comments & lyrics)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post provides a sound file of a portion of a 1940 recorded interview that singer, musician Lead Belly had with folklorist/collector Alan Lomax. Lead Belly sang "Gonna Dig A Hole Put The Devil In" & "It's Tight Like That" during that recorded interview.

A transcript of that specific portion of that interview is included in this post. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/12/leadellys-comments-about-shoo-fly-other.html for the complete transcription of that interview.

This post also includes a link to a Mudcat folk discussion thread that includes several transcription attempts for Lead Belly's version of "It's Tight Like That".

This content of this post is presented for folkloric, historical, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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FEATURED SOUND FILE: Lead Belly - Dig a Hole & Tight Like That



sherpa285, Uploaded on Dec 10, 2011

From an old vinyl 3 LP set that I bought years ago in a used record store. I've never heard either of these versions elsewhere. I believe that this is from a session with either Alan or John Lomax. Both songs are amazing. If anyone know any of the words, please post. I've been trying to figure some of them out for years.

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TRANSCRIPTION OF THAT INTERVIEW
From http://anthrocivitas.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1737&page=3 "American Folk Songs Of Black Origin"
Magneto, 12-15-2010, 03:55 PM Post #28

"In the following conversation, recorded by Library of Congress folklorist Alan Lomax in Washington in 1940, Huddie gives us some idea of all the dancing going on at a sukey jump, circa 1900. The conversation is being recorded onto discs which contain perhaps three or four minutes each, and are spinning around at 78 revolutions per minute. There is no time for long pauses or considered answers. While the interview sounds a bit like a word association game, it does gives an impression of what the dances were like...

Lomax: Huddie, did they have any real fast numbers at these dances? Do you remember any of those?

Ledbetter: They'd pick 'em up.

Lomax: When they'd do the hoedown and. . .

Ledbetter: They'd pick 'em up, you know, they'd have some fast ones when they'd just go, like, "Green Corn, Come Along Charlie," "Gonna Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In," and, "Tight Like That," sometimes they'd holler, say, "Tight like this!"
[They are both talking at once through here.]

Lomax: What did they mean by that Huddie, really? I mean, tell us confidentially what they mean by "tight like that."

[Lomax may have been fishing for some sexual innuendo, but Huddie wasnt playing along, perhaps realizing there was nothing confidential about this interview.]

Ledbetter: "Tight like that" means when you got your partner, grab and hug her tight, and keep her going, but when it comes time the boy grab his partner, he grab her and giving her a hug, he says, "Tight like this, it was tight like this, but now it's tight like this." And the boys'd be jumping on "Tight like that."

Lomax: What were some of the dance steps, Huddie, when they were playing some of these fast tunes?

Ledbetter: Well, ain't no dance steps you could do but "breakdown," and that's a fast number. You can't dance no tap dance, I don't think, a fast breakdown number, course you might, but that's where all the tap dances [Huddie is talking very fast, as though he's afraid of being interrupted] . . . all the tap dances come from the old "buck and wing" what they used to do. Well, the breakdown dance, nobody do 'em now, but I don't guess nobody know nothing about it very much, but me, and I do the breakdown. When you do it you got to do it real fast, and when you breakdown you ain't tapping, you just working your legs. Now, a long time ago my grandfather, great-grandfather, say, "you ain't dancing til you cross your legs." So I guess now, nobody dancing because they don't cross their legs hardly ever. But when you do that old breakdown, and wing down, and green corn and that old ground shovel and, uh . . .

Lomax: What about "knocking the pigeon wing?"

Ledbetter: . . . pigeon wing and . . .

Lomax: . . . cutting the back step?

Ledbetter: . . . cutting the short dog, well, you got to cross your legs.

Lomax: Huddie, play us one of those tunes, something like "Gonna Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In," and tell us what it means, too, you know.

Ledbetter: "Gonna Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In" - long years ago, that was when they see the boss coming, you know? And the boys would see the boss coming, well, they didn't like him, you know, but they'd be together, nothing but negroes all piled up there together. When they'd see him coming, they'd say, "Well, we're gonna dig a hole to put the devil in," boy they'd start a-jumping. [plays "Gonna dig a hole. . ." with very fast accompaniment on guitar.]"...
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/12/leadellys-comments-about-shoo-fly-other.html for the full transcript Library of Congress transcript of that interview.

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LYRICS: GWINE DIG A HOLE PUT THE DEVIL IN
(as sung by Lead Belly in the 1940 interview with Alan Lomax) This recording occurs at 2:07- 3:37 of the video given above.

Yeeee! They go down a hollerin to one another.

Yeee hoo!

Gwine* dig a hole put the devil in
Gwine dig a hole put the devil in
Gwine dig a hole
Gwine dig a hole
Letta dig a hole**
Letta dig a hole**

Yee ha! They all clappin and shoutin. The devil comin now. He don't know what it's all about, but they do.

Gwine dig a hole
Gwine dig a hole
Let me dig a hole to put the devil in
Let me dig a hole
Let the devil in
Let the devil in

Then they start

Gimme little bit of dram***
Little bit of dram
Little bit of dram
Little bit of dram

When the boss is gone they startin

I don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
I don't give a damn.

Yee Hoo!

I dig a hole put the devil in
I dig a hole
I dig a hole
I dig a hole
I dig a hole and put the devil in

Wake Jake days a breakin
Peas in the pot
and the hoe cakes' bakin
Gwine dig a hole
Gwine dig a hole
I dig a hole
I dig a hole

I don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
Don't give a damn
I don't give a damn.
-snip-
Transcription by Azizi Powell. Additions and corrections are welcome.

*Gwine is a no longer used Southern regional (USA) dialectic word which means "gonna".

**This word sounds like "pole" but I think that Lead Belly meant "hole".

***dram - a portion of an alcoholic drink

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EDITORIAL COMMENTS ABOUT THIS VERSION OF THIS SONG [revised on December 12, 2013]

In that 1940 recorded interview Lead Belly shared how "Gonna Dig A Hole Put The Devil In" was sung by "negroes" who saw their "boss" coming. ("Negroes" is no longer used as a referent for Black Americans and even before that referent was retired, many Black people and other people considered it offensive to spell that word with a small "n". Lead Belly said that this song was sung this way "a long time ago". I'm not sure if "the boss" here means the slave master or the person who was in charge of men who were working post-slavery.)

In my opinion, Lead Belly's recollection of how "Gonna Dig A Hole" was sung demonstrates how Black people masked their true feelings about their life situations in front of White people while they insulted them in coded form right in front of White people's faces. Combining the religious song "Dig A Hole Put The Devil In" with a familiar fiddler song "Give The Fiddler A Dram" masked the fact that the workers considered "the boss" to be "the devil". Notice that after the boss leaves, the song changes to the defiant verse "I don't give a damn". Also, notice how Lead Belly says that the boss didn't understand that the "dig a hole" song was sung as an insult. "They all clappin and shoutin. The devil comin now. He don't know what it's all about, but they do."

It's interesting that the White folklorist Alan Lomax doesn't appear to have caught the hidden purpose of those lyrics as sung by those men, and the defiant nature of their "don't give a damn" lines.

That said, it's important to clarify that, in contrast to some Black militants in the late 1960s and 1970s's use of "the devil" as a referent for a White person, it appears to me that in Lead Belly's recollections of that song, the boss was equated with the devil, not because of his race, but because of his role as a boss (or a owner of slaves).
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/12/lead-bellys-and-several-other-versions.html for another pancocojams posts that includes this Lead Belly version of "Gonna Dig A Hole".

Click http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=126852
for a Mudcat folk discussion thread that includes several transcription attempts for Lead Belly's version of "It's Tight Like That".

Also, click http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=137600 "Origins: Dig a hole to put the devil in" for a Mudcat discussion thread that documents that the "dig a hole, put the devil in" line was known in England. That discussion thread includes other songs that contain that "dig a hole" line.

"Stomping the devil on his head" is a related saying that is closely associated with the Pentecostal denomination. People who are "shouting" (doing the holy dance) are said to be "stomping
the devil in his head".

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/06/its-tight-like-that-videos-lyrics-part.html for a pancocojams post on "It's Tight Like That" (Videos & Lyrics) Part I: Georgia Tom & Tampa Red (1928)

****
Thanks to Lead Belly for his musical legacy. Thanks also
to Alan Lomax for his role in collecting and disseminating these
songs, and thanks to Magneto for posting that Library of Congress transcript. Thanks also to the publisher of this sound file on YouTube.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

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Lead Belly's Comments About "Shoo Fly" & Other 19th Century & Early 20th Century Dances

Edited by Azizi Powell

[revised March 26, 2014]

This post focuses on various 19th century African American instructional dances – (dances that are performed to directional [instructions or commands, i.e. “calls”) that folk singer/performer Lead Belly made about the "shoo fly" dance or dance movement and other dance movements that he recalls some African Americans performing in the late 19th century or early 20th century.

This post also includes my comments about the continuity of the instructional dance tradition as evidenced by some 20th century, and 21st century African American & Caribbean dance songs.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

****
GENERAL COMMENTS AND INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "SHOO FLY"
"Shoo" = an exclamation that means "Go away"; "Get out of here", usually said while waving hands, motioning the person, animal, or insect (such as a fly) to move away.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoo_Fly,_Don't_Bother_Me
“Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me” was first published in 1869 by White, Smith & Perry. It is not entirely clear who wrote it, but Thomas (T.) Brigham Bishop is often given credit. Bishop was a colorful fellow. He was born in Maine in 1835, and from an early age had success as a musician. He was a performer on the “negro minstrel” *circuit, and wrote, or claimed to have written, co-authored, and composed a handful of very popular Civil War era songs, such as “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” and “John Brown’s Body.” He was undoubtedly involved in producing some popular music, but other composers have also laid claim to some of the same songs, and there is little evidence to provide a definitive answer...

[Bishop] reportedly wrote “Shoo Fly” during his time as a commanding officer of a black regiment, referred to as ‘Company G’ in the song, during the Civil War. There are a couple of versions of the story, but the common thread is that he heard one of the soldiers say, “Shoo, fly, don’t bother me!” and it ignited his imagination. He wrote the tune and lyrics and then taught the song to his men. It quickly caught on. After its military run, the song became a regular part of black and blackface comedy routines, with an accompanying dance. Other people also published versions of the song, but Bishop claimed that it had been pirated from him".
-snip-
*"negro minstrel circuit" - performance circuits for performers of songs that were purported to be or were actually from Southern African American sources or were pertaining to Southern African Americans (These weren't the same performance circuits as the 20th century "Chitlin Circuit" that refers to the usual performance sites throughout the USA for Black non-religious performers; Also to be clear, Brigham Bishop was an Anglo American

Click http://shoo-fly.weebly.com/http://shoo-fly.weebly.com/ “Shoo Fly!” for more information about the history of the song "Shoo Fly". That article and the Wikipedia page whose link is given above also include the original lyrics to that song.

WARNING: The original lyrics for "Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me" contain offensive language [the n word fully spelled out].

Also, click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_to_My_Lou for information about the play party song "Skip To My Lou" which includes the phrase "shoo fly shoo".

****
LEAD BELLY EXCERPT #1 - THE SHOO FLY DANCE OR DANCE CALL
From Google Books The Life & Legend Of Huddie Ledbetter by Wolfe/lornell, pps 20-21
"De white folk ‘low dem [allow them] to have de frolic* with de fiddle and or banjo or windjammer. Dey dance out on de grass, forty or fifty n-----rs**, and dem big girls nineteen year old git out dere barefoot as de goose. It jes’ de habit of de times, 'cause dey all have shoes. Sometimes de call*** de jig dance and some of dem sure dance it, too. De prompter*** call “All git ready.” Den de holler . “All balance,” and den he sing out “Swing your partner”, and dey does it. Den he say “All promenade”, and dey goes in de circle****. One thing that dey calls “Bird in de Cage”. Three join hands round de girl in de middle, and dance around her, and then she git out and her partner git in the center ***** and dey dance awhile.”...

These turn-of- the century gatherings featured a number of different styles of dancing. The older people preferred the classic Texas square dance, which had developed from the French cotillion and contra dances decades earlier.

[Huddie Ledbetter's comments]
“They called the sets all the time when they danced”, said Huddie. “They called “Shoo Fly”, uses [sic] “shoo fly” mean square dance. It worked this way: a couple would get on the dance floor, and on cue from the caller, begin to circle to the right. And then, said Huddie, when you get back to your home [starting place], grab your partner, the first man on the head “shoo fly”. When they begin to “shoo fly” then they holler
“Shoo fly, shoo fly
Shoo fly, shoo fly”

Then they commence to hollering
One dollar bill baby, won’t buy you no shoes.
One dollar bill baby, won’t buy you no shoes.
One dollar bill baby, won’t buy you no shoes.
One dollar bill baby, won’t buy you no shoes.

Then the next man would head “shoo fly”: get his partner and circle around. This continued until each couple had circled to home; they would make a ring and circle again, find their partners, and begin to “dance on ahead and dance toward the candy stand”.

Younger partners preferred a faster beat and a faster tune, and did a complex set of dance steps that Huddie later referred to as “breakdowns” or “the old buck and wing”. “You got to do it real fast”. And when you breakdown, you ain’t tapping, you just work your legs. Now a long time ago, my grandfather, my great grandfather say you ain’t dancing till you cross your legs.” The Baptist church tried to discourage African religious practices among slaves. It forbade not only drumming, but any kind of dancing – with dancing defined as movement that involved crossing the legs...

Another account from the twentieth century describes a dance called the Dog Scratch being done by two individuals surrounded by a circle of men who shouted encouragement , and clapped, and eventually joined in. Mance Lipscomb recalled two dancers engaged in “cutting contests...seeing who could outdance the other. You ever seen two roosters flappin’ up alongside the other? It was like that.” Leadbelly also recalled a dance called “Knocking the Pigeon Wing”."
-snip-
* "frolic" = a dance gathering

**"n----rs" - what is now known as the "n word"; That word is fully spelled out in this book.

***"call" here means "dance instructions given by a person serving as a 'caller' while couples danced", "prompter" means "the caller".

****This probably means “move around the circle” similar to or the same as “skip around the circle”, and not “go inside the circle”.

***** I think this means “and then she gets out [of the inner circle made by the three people surrounding her; she remains in the center] and her partner gets in the center” and they dance awhile.
-snip-
The authors also mention “the Short Dog”, “cutting the pigeon wing”, doing the “Eagle Rock”, and "tap dancing", which is described as “the newer dance derived from these old dance steps.“

In the quote given below as Excerpt #1, Lead Belly indicates that "shoo fly" was used by African Americans as a dance call (in the late 19th century or early 20th century). As such that call appears to have been a caller's directional command to move [or perhaps "to move away" fast]. Also, if I understand that same excerpt correctly, Lead Belly indicates that "shoo fly" was a general referent for square dancing, although perhaps that quote means that when the phrase "shoo fly" was used, it meant that a particular type of dancing was occurring or would occur i.e. "shoo fly" signaled or referred to a particular type of couples dance movement or movements that were performed in a ring (circle) when a caller indicated what moves were to be performed). Those usages undoubtedly came from the "Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me" song as evidenced by the fact that Lead Belly recalls people singing a portion of that song while they did that "shoo fly" movement during that ring (circle) dance.

The Appalachian square dance call "shoo fly swing" probably is a different dance call than that 19th century African American "shoo fly" call. However, watching videos such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KKvElR4ZaA may provide some ideas about how African American ring dances which were "called" were performed.

That said, even though he talked about circle dances and not line dances, Lead Belly's descriptions of the "shoo fly" and other ring dance movements also remind me of the Liberian Grand March. Like the Virginia Reel, the Liberian Grand March was derived from American dances that had their sources in European contra dances. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/02/grand-march-liberia-west-africa.html for a pancocojams post on the Liberian Grand March.

****
LEAD BELLY EXCERPT #2 - THE WORD "SUKEY" AND THE MEANING OF "SUKEY JUMP"
From http://anthrocivitas.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1737&page=3 "American Folk Songs Of Black Origin"
Magneto, 12-15-2010, 03:55 PM Post #28
"According to Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, one meaning of the word "sukey" (circa 1820) was a general servant or "slavey." Hence a "sukey jump" referred to a dance or party in the slave quarters; after slavery, it was simply a term for a house dance.

In the following conversation, recorded by Library of Congress folklorist Alan Lomax in Washington in 1940, Huddie gives us some idea of all the dancing going on at a sukey jump, circa 1900. The conversation is being recorded onto discs which contain perhaps three or four minutes each, and are spinning around at 78 revolutions per minute. There is no time for long pauses or considered answers. While the interview sounds a bit like a word association game, it does gives an impression of what the dances were like.

Lomax: I want Huddie to tell you about the way they put on the square dances down in Louisiana when he was a boy, growing up, in the backwoods. Huddie, what did they call square dances?

Ledbetter: Called them sukey jumps.

Lomax: Why did they call them sukey jumps?

Ledbetter: Well, because they danced so fast, the music was so fast, and the people had to jump, so they always called them sukey jumps.

Lomax: Do you know what "sukey" means?

Ledbetter: Sukey - well, that's a cow sometimes when you tell her, "Sukey, sukey, sukey," you know, keeping the cow away.

Lomax: Did they ever holler that at the dances when they had them?

Ledbetter: They'd just holler "Sukey jump!" and they'd holler, "One dollar bill, baby, won't buy you no shoes," just anything they feel like singing in there.

Lomax: What kind of music did they have?

Ledbetter: Well, they had a fiddler in them times; and accordions.

Lomax: And what were the names of some of the tunes they played?

Ledbetter: The tunes was "Poor Howard," he was a poor boy and he played the fiddle. He was the first fiddler after the negroes got free from slavery time. Poor Howard was a negro used to play for them at the sukey jumps. And the number he played was "Poor Howard, Poor Boy."

Lomax: How does that go?

Ledbetter: [Plays and sings.] "Poor Howard, Poor Boy" goes like this.

Lomax: Huddie, did they call the sets [as in square dance calls] at these dances?

Ledbetter: They called the sets all the time when they danced; they called "Shoo-fly," you could shoo-fly, and the square dance.

Lomax: How did that sound? Give us a sketch of how they called the sets down there.

Ledbetter: When they called the sets, they holler,

"Hey, man, you swing mine and I'll swing yours,"
but when they first get on the floor, they holler,
"Grab your partners, step the right way round,"
they always drive right way,
"Now, man, you know you're going wrong,
now circle left way round,
and when you get back to your home,
grab your partner,
the first man on the head, shoo-fly."
When you get the shoo-fly, then they holler,
"Shoo-fly, Shoofly"
then they come to the holler,
"One dollar bill baby won't buy you no shoes."

[Huddie goes on singing and playing, calling the set "One dollar bill. . ."]

Lomax: Huddie, did they have any real fast numbers at these dances? Do you remember any of those?

Ledbetter: They'd pick 'em up.

Lomax: When they'd do the hoedown and. . .

Ledbetter: They'd pick 'em up, you know, they'd have some fast ones when they'd just go, like, "Green Corn, Come Along Charlie," "Gonna Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In," and, "Tight Like That," sometimes they'd holler, say, "Tight like this!"
[They are both talking at once through here.]

Lomax: What did they mean by that Huddie, really? I mean, tell us confidentially what they mean by "tight like that."

[Lomax may have been fishing for some sexual innuendo, but Huddie wasnt playing along, perhaps realizing there was nothing confidential about this interview.]

Ledbetter: "Tight like that" means when you got your partner, grab and hug her tight, and keep her going, but when it comes time the boy grab his partner, he grab her and giving her a hug, he says, "Tight like this, it was tight like this, but now it's tight like this." And the boys'd be jumping on "Tight like that."

Lomax: What were some of the dance steps, Huddie, when they were playing some of these fast tunes?

Ledbetter: Well, ain't no dance steps you could do but "breakdown," and that's a fast number. You can't dance no tap dance, I don't think, a fast breakdown number, course you might, but that's where all the tap dances [Huddie is talking very fast, as though he's afraid of being interrupted] . . . all the tap dances come from the old "buck and wing" what they used to do. Well, the breakdown dance, nobody do 'em now, but I don't guess nobody know nothing about it very much, but me, and I do the breakdown. When you do it you got to do it real fast, and when you breakdown you ain't tapping, you just working your legs. Now, a long time ago my grandfather, great-grandfather, say, "you ain't dancing til you cross your legs." So I guess now, nobody dancing because they don't cross their legs hardly ever. But when you do that old breakdown, and wing down, and green corn and that old ground shovel and, uh . . .

Lomax: What about "knocking the pigeon wing?"

Ledbetter: . . . pigeon wing and . . .

Lomax: . . . cutting the back step?

Ledbetter: . . . cutting the short dog, well, you got to cross your legs.

Lomax: Huddie, play us one of those tunes, something like "Gonna Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In," and tell us what it means, too, you know.

Ledbetter: "Gonna Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In" - long years ago, that was when they see the boss coming, you know? And the boys would see the boss coming, well, they didn't like him, you know, but they'd be together, nothing but negroes all piled up there together. When they'd see him coming, they'd say, "Well, we're gonna dig a hole to put the devil in," boy they'd start a-jumping. [plays "Gonna dig a hole. . ." with very fast accompaniment on guitar.]

Lomax: Huddie, can you play "Green Corn" on the twelve-string guitar?

Ledbetter: I think I can.

Lomax: Let's hear a little of "Green Corn." [Huddie starts to strum his guitar. Lomax interrupts] Slow and easy and sweet, Huddie! [Huddie slows the tempo] What is green corn, anyhow? Tell us about it when you sing the song.

Ledbetter: [Strumming and explaining] Now, this is a fast sukey jump too, but the boys take it easy sometimes when they want to sukey jump; keep them dancing so hard and take it easy on the ground, shuffle around with your partner, [sings, but doesn't explain "green corn". Lomax tries to interrupt with "What is green corn?" but Huddie either doesn't hear, or ignores him.]

Lomax: [Just as the song ends] What is green corn? What is green corn, Huddie? [Lomax likely wants to hear that green corn is some form of white lightning, but, again, Huddie is not co-operating. He keeps it simple.]

Ledbetter: Green corn is an ear of corn - when it's green. What they mean by green corn, they're just putting that in the words, you know, 'cause the man is green and they didn't know what they was talking about themselves. What they was speaking about is an ear of corn when it's green. Down south when the corn gets dry, why then that's corn - hard corn, then. But when they say "green corn", that means it's green, you can go out in the field and pull it and roast it. . .

Lomax: I thought you meant green corn whiskey.

Ledbetter: No, not no green corn whiskey, they didn't know nothing about no corn liquor at that time. They had old-time liquor, you know, that's real good liquor, wasn't no bootleggers then. Couldn't make no liquor. How are they going to make liquor when they're all slaves? [Huddie sounds condescending] The old boss they wouldn't get no liquor till the boss would give it to them.

Lomax: Huddie, at these old-timey sukey jumps, did people dance in their bare feet, or with shoes on?

Ledbetter: Well, them that could get shoes, they would dance like that and lots of them didn't have 'cause I know plenty boys in my time

Lomax: [interrupting] . . .what about the women? Would they wear shoes or not?

Ledbetter: Well, when they could get them. If they couldn't, they just go barefooted.

Lomax: Would they ever circle left in these dances, or

Ledbetter: They's circle left right, they'd start out right. . .

Lomax: . . .they'd start right first?

Ledbetter: That's right. . .

Lomax: [talking on top of Huddie] How many times would they go around right?

Ledbetter: Well, you see, when they'd first start right, they'd go around right and then the man would holler, "Circle left way round,"

Lomax: And they'd gone one time around?

Ledbetter: That's right and then he'd holler, "Circle right way around again, and when you get back home, grab your partner," so when they first start out circling right way around he'd tell them to skip on up ahead and catch the next partner in front of them, and they'd keep on catching and he'd say, "Now, when you get home, circle left way around" and when they get home, they circle left way around, he says, "Now circle right way around, and when you get back to the spot, settle down. First man on the head, grab his partner and shoo-fly." That's the way they do that down there. (Library of Congress)"
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/12/lead-belly-dig-hole-put-devil-in-its.html for a recording of portions of this recorded interview of Lead Belly by Alan Lomax. That post also includes my transcription of and comments about Lead Belly's rendition of the song "Dig A Hole Put The Devil In" as he sung it in that interview.

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BRIEF COMMENTS ABOUT 19th CENTURY AND 20th & 21th CENTURY AFRICAN AMERICAM INSTRUCTIONAL DANCES
19th century African American plantation dances such as “Juba” and “Jim Along Josie” are precursors to 20th century & 21st century African American dance instruction songs (records whose lyrics wholey or to a large extent consist of dance instructions). Those 20th century & 21st century dance instruction songs also have their source in the custom of calling square dances.

A significant percentage of 20th century/21st century African American non-religious songs are dance instruction records. Three examples are Wilson Pickett's "Land Of 1000 Dances", 69 Boyz's “Tootsie Roll” and DJ Casper's “Cha Cha Slide”.

Marcia Griffin's “Electric Slide”, and The Soca Boys' “Follow The Leader” are two examples of Caribbean dance instruction records. A 2012 example of a Caribbean dance instruction record is Fowko's "Bouyon Danse" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhubZ-24tdc

****
Thanks to Lead Belly for his musical legacy and his information about African American dances. Thanks to all others who I quoted in this post.

Thank you for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

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The REAL History Of The Song "Pick A Bale Of Cotton"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post is provides a time line with citations and comments about the song "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" (PABOC) up to 1950. Lyrics for some examples of that song are also given in this post. A number of comments are given in Addendum #1 to this post below. Addendum #2 features three additonal videos of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton".

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, historical, cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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EDITOR'S COMMENT
"Pick A Bale Of Cotton" (PABOC) is a song of African American origin whose lyrics have become quite controversial since at least the last part of the 20th century.

Hyperlinks to some online discussions about the controversial nature of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" [since at least the late 20th century] are provided in this post. However, unlike most online blogs & articles about "Pick A Bale Of Cotton", this post focuses on the history of that song, with particular attention to documentation of pre-Lead Belly citations & performances of this song.

Additions & corrections and family friendly* comments are very welcome.

*By "family friendly" I mean no profanity, no fully spelled out "n-word", no racist comments or political comments/arguments, and no sexually explicit language. All of those types of comments are routinely found in YouTube comment threads and in most online sites that focus on "Pick A Bale Of Cotton". Although none of that content is included on this page-I'm including a WARNING that such content may be found on online sources whose hyperlinks are provided in this post.

As per the policy of this blog, no profanity is found in this post, and what is commonly referred to as "the n word" is represented by "n___r" with an asterisk which indicates that the completely spelled out word is found in the source text.

****
"PICK A BALE OF COTTON" SONG TIME LINE
No documentation of the song "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" has been found prior to the 1930s.

December 1933 - "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" recorded by James 'Iron Head] Baker, a prisoner at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_%22Iron_Head%22_Baker_and_Moses_%22Clear_Rock%22_Platt

**
1934 - Verses of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" are included in American Ballads and Folk Songs, edited by John Avery Lomax
From http://books.google.com/books?id=Dn0cSe2ecuoC&pg=PA231&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false [Google Books], pp. 231-233
My comment:
In that book John Lomax wrote that "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" was "a Negro work song that was sung in prison by “Clear Rock" [Moses Platt], who Lomax described as "a 70 year old 'water boy'” at Central State Farm, near Sugarland, Texas” [state farm = prison]. Lomax wrote that the song survived the Civil War and slavery as per its references to “massa”. [Read the comments in the Addendum below about Lomax's speculation that "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" was a Black American slavery work song.]

In that book, John Lomax includes two verses for PABOC:
"Dat n___r* from Shiloh kin pick a bale of cotton" etc.

and

"O massa told de n___rs*
Pick a bale of cotton
O massa told de n___rs*
Pick a bale a day"

**
1936 - John and Alan Lomax write about "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" in their book "Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly," Macmillan Company, 1936, page 92:
"In other versions of this song (see same title in "American Ballads and Folksongs") such lines as "Ol' massa tol' de n___rs*, Pick a bale o' cotton," and "Massa gimme one dram to Pick a bale o' cotton," are frequent. We are led to believe, [my italics] therefore, that "Pick a Bale o' Cotton" is a slave song, another of the old Negro tunes the Texas prison system has kept alive, while the prisoners died... The tune...is well known, especially among older prisoners, throughout the Texas penitentiary system."
-snip-
This is an excerpt of a comment that was posted by Guest, Autoharper [Adam Miller] on http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=90399
"Origins: Pick a Bale of Cotton" [hereafter given as Mudcat: Origins PABOC; 18 Apr 13 - 08:31 AM
*This word is fully spelled out in this book.

**
1939 - John & Alan Lomax record James 'Ironhead' Baker (and Moses 'Clear Rocks' Platt?) singing "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" [Rounder Records]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_%22Iron_Head%22_Baker_and_Moses_%22Clear_Rock%22_Platt
"James "Iron Head" Baker and Moses "Clear Rock" Platt were African American traditional folk singers imprisoned in the Central State Prison Farm in Sugar Land, Texas. They are notable for a number of field recordings of work songs and other material made by John Lomax for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Music in the 1930s."
-snip-
The first entry in the Addendum below includes an excerpt from a book Prison Writing in 20th-century America edited by Howard Bruce Franklin that comments about picking cotton in Texas prison farms and also includes a brief version of a pre-Leadbelly version of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" that is sung as a lament by Texas inmates.

**
From Mudcat: Origins PABOC, posted by Q 14 Nov 05 - 08:16 PM
"...Just listened to the Rev. Mose Platt sing this perky little work song on the Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip (American Memory, Library of Congress). He used the phrase "jump down turn around, pick a bale a day.

The version is quite different from the one ascribed to 'Clear Rock' (Platt) in Lomax, ABFS 1934 [recorded in December 1933?], which has the Shiloh verse, but not the 'jump around' phrase. I can't find a recording listed for Platt before 1939. Platt could have changed his lyrics, or those in Lomax could be a 'combined' version put together by Lomax- which has happened before. His recording of the song in his "Deep River of Song" collection lists an "unknown axe-cutting group" as singing the song."
-snip-
My assumption is that Rev. Mose Platt & Moses 'Clear Rocks' Platt are the same person.

**
Between 1941 and 1947 - Lead Belly recorded "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" for Folkways Records [now Smithsonian Folkways Recordings]. SFW40044_102 http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=34149

One of the recordings was "Lead Belly Sings for Children"
Lead Belly SFW45047"
From http://www.folkways.si.edu/lead-belly-sings-for-children/african-american-music-folk-blues/album/smithsonian
"Originally recorded in children's concerts and studios for Moses Asch and Folkways Records in the 1940s".

**
1945 - Lead Belly performs "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" live [Folklore Research film, edited by Pete Seeger]

Leadbelly Pick A Bale Of Cotton '45Z



cornelius627, Uploaded on Feb 24, 2012
-snip-
The song that Lead Belly hums in the beginning of this film is "In The Pines", a song that is different from "Pick A Bale Of Cotton". PABOC begins at 1:23 in this film clip.

Lead Belly's comments prefacing that song:
"And this is another work song. When we pick cotton, you got to jump down to pick a bale of cotton a day. You can't fool around. And we sing:

Lyrics:
Great God almighty
Gonna pick a bale of cotton
Great God almighty
Gonna pick a bale a day.

Chorus:
Ah Lawd, I can pick a bale of cotton.
Ah Lawd, I can pick a bale a day.
Ah Lawd, I can pick a bale of cotton.
Ah Lawd, I can pick a bale a day.
Ah Lawd, I can pick a bale of cotton.
Ah Lawd, I can pick a bale a day.

Oh, me and my wife, can pick a bale of cotton etc.

Chorus

Gotta jump down, turn around and pick a bale of cotton etc.

Chorus

Me and my buddy can pick a bale of cotton etc.

Chorus

Me and my papa can pick a bale of cotton etc.

Chorus

Me and my sister can pick a bale of cotton etc.

I can pick a bale, pick a bale of cotton etc.

Chorus

I'm gonna jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton etc.
-snip-
Read various comments -including mine - about Lead Belly's performance of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" in the Addendum below.

****
ADDENDUM
From Prison Writing in 20th-century America edited by Howard Bruce Franklin, Penguin, 1998 [Google Book], p. 29-30
"Chapter: Songs Of The Prison Plantation
"The work songs of African American convicts constitute the most poignant evidence of the continuity from Pre-Civil War chattel slavery to the twentieth century prison. The songs have served much the same function for modern prison slaves as the work songs of their slave ancestors. They pace collective labor such as picking cotton under the boiling sun on prison plantations, precisely time dangerous joint activities like chopping down trees, and provide an assertion of people’s creativity and a defense of their humanity. The songs thus made it possible to survive under the most brutal and degrading condition, conditions designed to reduce them to work animals.

Some of the old slave songs actually persisted well into the second half of the 20th century. For example, these lines were sung by modern convicts picking cotton on a Texas prison plantation:

Well old marster told old mistress I could pick a bale of cotton
Well old marster told old mistress I could pick a bale a day.
You big enough and black enough to pick a bale of cotton.
You big enough and black enough to pick a bale a day.
Chorus

But never will I pick a bale of cotton
How in the world will I pick a bale a day."
-snip-
From http://www.cotton.org/edu/faq/
"How much does a bale of cotton weigh?

A bale of cotton weighs about 500 pounds."

**
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_Belly : for information about, including the fact that "In 1930 Ledbetter [Huddie William Ledbetter (January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949)] was in Louisiana's Angola Prison Farm after a summary trial for attempted homicide, charged with knifing a white man in a fight. It was there he was "discovered" three years later during a visit by folklorists John Lomax and his then 18-year-old son Alan Lomax.[12] Deeply impressed by Ledbetter's vibrant tenor and extensive repertoire, the Lomaxes recorded him on portable aluminum disc recording equipment for the Library of Congress. They returned with new and better equipment in July of the following year (1934), recording hundreds of his songs all in all. On August 1, Ledbetter was released after having again served almost all of his minimum sentence following a petition the Lomaxes had taken to Louisiana Governor Oscar K. Allen at his urgent request. It was on the other side of a recording of his signature song, "Goodnight Irene."
-snip-
I'm including this information although there's no documentation that "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" was among the "hundreds of songs" that the Lomaxes recorded of Lead Belly in 1934 while he was in Louisiana's Angola State Farm. [as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_Belly]

Notice that in "Negro Folk Songs As Sung By Leadbelly" [which is quoted above], the Lomaxes write that "Pick a Bale o' Cotton" is a slave song, another of the old Negro tunes the Texas prison system has kept alive"...
-snip-
Italics added by me to highlight that portion of the sentence.

It seems likely that Lead Belly picked up "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" from "Iron Head" Baker & "Clear Rocks" Platt and transformed that song into the uptempo, dance song [sookie jump/play party tempo] that is almost always heard for that song today. In that sense, Lead Belly is the arranger and not the composer/writer of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton".

Furthermore, it's also likely that at least many of Lead Belly's Black audiences who heard his comments prefacing his performances of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" and his version of that song were aware that he was "lying" [telling tall tales, boasting, funnin'] when he said that he [and others] "picked a bale of cotton [in] a day. Those Black audiences, and others familiar with picking cotton knew that it wasn't humanly possible to pick a bale of cotton in one day.

Part of the problem was "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" nowadays is that many people don't understand the "lyin" tradition that Lead Belly is reflecting. African American writer/folklorist Zora Neale Hurston wrote about that same lying tradition in her book Mules To Men. The fact that "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" that was standarized and popularized by Lead Belly is a bragging song escapes most people since the 20th century because we're not familiar with those bragging/"lying" customs.

**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e4qwOQzmnc
Excerpt of the video summary statement published by raymondcrooke
"Pick a Bale of Cotton (Traditional American)", Uploaded on Mar 12, 2011
"First collected by Alan Lomax from prison farms in Texas, this is a boastful song about picking an impossibly large quantity of cotton (a bale is about a quarter of a ton). One version (1934) sung by Moses Clear Rock Platt, an African-American singer (and prisoner) has led to some controversy as it used the word "n____r"*. In fact, many people now consider it politically incorrect to sing this song at all because of its associations with slavery. There is a fascinating thread on the Mudcat site about a school that was pressured into withdrawing the song from a choral concert after complaints from parents. **

Pete Seeger has argued that it would have been sung fairly slowly as a work song if it was actually sung by the slaves on the cotton fields, so it is quite likely that it does not actually go back to those times. The version that we know today comes mainly from the singing of Lead Belly, who called it a "play-party" song, and has been carried on by singers such as Harry Belafonte, Odetta and the great blues duo, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee."

**Click http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=86330
"Where is thy sting?-'Pick a Bale of Cotton' Ban" [hereafter given as "Mudcat: Sting PABOC" for this Mudcat discussion. Full disclosure, I participated in that discussion as well as the Mudcat discussion on the origin of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton".

**
Mudcat: Sting PABOC", posted by Q, 14 Nov 05 - 02:05 PM
"First collected from prison farms in Texas, a boastful song about picking an impossibly large quantity of cotton (it has never been done). The version with the lines about the "n___r* from Shiloh" was sung by Moses Clear Rock Platt, African-American singer, story teller and sometime prisoner on prison farms in Texas. His material was first recorded by Lomax (printed in Lomax and Lomax, 1934, "American Ballads and Folk Songs," pp. 231-233).

Pete Seeger picked it up, and along with the printed version in Silber, "Folksinger's Wordbook," p. 123 (with chords), it became a standard among folk singers."...
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out.

**
From "Mudcat: Sting PABOC", posted by Q, 14 Nov 05 - 09:33 PM
..."It ["Pick A Bale Of Cotton"] may never have been used by cotton-pickers. "Pick a Bale" has not been found in any collection before the 1930s, it may well have been just a handy line, much as 'pick a peck of pickles' in the kid's tongue-twister. The rhythm is wrong for picking cotton."

**
Editor's comment:
It appears that John Lomax considered the inclusion of the word "massa" in 'Iron Head' Baker's and 'Clear Rocks' Platts' version of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" to be enough evidence to support his assertion that "PABOC" was sung by Black people during slavery while they were picking cotton or at other times. However, no folklorist has found documentation of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" being sung during United States slavery. I wonder if Iron Head Baker & Clear Rocks Platt used the word "massa" in their rendition of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" to veil the fact that they were actually referring to their prison overseers when they used the word "massa" or "master and "mistress".
[I used italic font to highlight this sentence.]

**
From http://www.allmusic.com/song/pick-a-bale-of-cotton-mt0011917299 Song Review by Barry Weber
..."Ledbetter took old folk ballads and reworked them into songs that would prove to pave the way for not only folk and blues, but for rock and roll as well. One of the greatest examples of this is "Pick a Bale of Cotton," an old work song that will forever be known as a Leadbelly tune. Though the original is most remembered as a working man's lament, Ledbetter transformed "Pick a Bale of Cotton" into a fast-paced, out-and-out dance number obviously influenced by his youthful "sookie jump" days. And while the early anonymous recordings of this song sadly reflect, "Never will I/pick a bale-a-day," Leadbelly's lyrics boast "I jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton/I jump down, turn around, pick a bale a day." Never mind that picking a bale of cotton in one day is unthinkable--the fact is Leadbelly took a song of hopeless anguish and turned it into a song of fantasy, of proving the impossible possible. This was a message that proved to resonate with the working class--particularly the southern blacks--and "Pick a Bale of Cotton" is a testament to Leadbelly's talent for completely transforming an old song in both performance and message. It is easy to listen to the unrestrained ecstasy in Ledbetter's performance and realize just why so many people refer to this song, despite it's [sic] traditional roots, as a Leadbelly original."
-snip-
Italics added to highlight these sentences.

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ADDENDUM #2: Three Additional Videos of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton"

WARNING: Comments in some of these videos' viewer comment threads contain profanity, the n word fully spelled out, racist language, and other inappropriate content.

Example #1: Lonnie Donegan - Pick a Bale of Cotton (video by 41)



NormanSweetcream, Uploaded on Sep 23, 2008

I made a music video for a great song. I hope you enjoy it.

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Example #2: The Jerk 'end credits'



Dan Rychlec, Uploaded on Aug 12, 2011

The closing credits for "The Jerk". Always loved this version of "Pick a Bale of Cotton" by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee but couldn't it find anywhere... but here. Its low quality cause I don't know what I'm doin'. Feel free to improve it.
-snip-
I think that this movie scene greatly contributed to the toxicity of the song "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" in that this scene seemed to seemed to make fun of poor Black people. Furthermore, the use of that song seemed to confirm the opinion many Black people have held since at least the late 20th century that the uptempo, joyous nature of the "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" disrespects and trivalizes the memory of Black enslaved people who worked in cotton fields under horrendous conditions.

The fact that "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" was probably not a real 19th century work song - as no documentation of that song can be found until the 1930s - and the fact that Lead Belly transformed the earlier lament to its uptempo danceable form is important to note, but doesn't really change the negative perceptions that many people, particularly many Black people, have about this song. Of course, one of the reasons for this is that few people are aware of the real history of the song "Pick A Bale Of Cotton".

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Example #3: Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee-Pick a Bale of Cotton



TravelerIntoTheBlue,·Published on Sep 15, 2013
-snip-
Notice that the beginning spoken words to this version of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" mention "working in the chain gang". Refereences to prison chain gangs are repeated throughout this song. This is pertinent since the earliest examples of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" are from two African Americans inmates from a Texas prison - "Iron Head" Baker and "Clean Rocks" Platt. However, the version of that song that is performed by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee isn't the lament/veiled protest of those prisoners, but the "sookie jump" influenced uptempo, bragging song that Lead Belly has made the standard form for "Pick A Bale Of Cotton".

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RELATED LINK
In addition to the links given above, click this link for a discussion about the controversy about "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" being sung by children in American schools http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/03/03/191309/-Racist-song-in-my-kid-s-music-class.

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Thanks to all those singers and collectors of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" who are mentioned in this post. Thanks also to all those who I have quoted in this post and thanks to the vocalists featured in videos embedded in this post, as well as the producers of those videos.

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