In addition to those posts that I provided above, here's excerpts from two posts on the Limber Jack thread that mention patting Juba:


Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Limber Jim: History & Lyrics
From: John Minear - PM
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 08:48 PM

I found the Lafcadio Hearn material that Masato referred to above. It has been published in several forms. I found it in a little book called CHILDREN OF THE LEVEE, published by the University of Kentucky Press in 1957. It is a reprint of the original articles written by Hearn in 1874-1877 for the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati Commercial. Here is what he says about the song "Limber Jim":

"But the most famous songs in vogue among the roustabouts is "Limber Jim," or "Shiloh." Very few know it all by heart, which is not wonderful when we consider that it requires something like twenty minutes to sing "Limber Jim" from beginning to end, and that the whole song, if printed in full, would fill two columns of the Commercial.(!) The only person in the city who can sing the song through, we belileve, is a colored laborer living near Sixth and Culvert streets, who "run on the river" for years, and acquired so much of a reputation by singing "Limber Jim," that he has been nicknamed after the mythical individual aforesaid, and is now known by no other name. He keeps a little resort in Bucktown, which is known as "Limber Jim's," and has a fair reputation for one dwelling in that locality. Jim very good-naturedly sang the song for us a few nights ago, and we took down some of the most striking verses for the benefit of our readers. The air is wonderfully quick and lively, and the chorus is quite exciting. The leading singer sings the whole song, excepting the chorus, "Shiloh," which dissyllable is generally chanted by twenty or thirty voices of abysmal depth at the same time with a sound like the roar of twenty Chinese gongs struck with a tremendous force and precision. A great part of "Limber Jim" is very profane, and some of it is not quite fit to print. We can give only about one-tenth part of it.(!) The chorus is frequently accompanied with that wonderfully rapid slapping of thighs and hips known as "patting Juba." (And then follows the song given by Masato above. The chorus is indicated after each verse). Pages 70-71.

**

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Limber Jim: History & Lyrics
From: John Minear - PM
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 06:23 AM
...

I am struck by the final "Juba" chorus of his [Lafcadio Hearn's collection of the song] "Limber Jim".

[Patting Juba]
And you can't go yonder,
Limber Jim!
And you can't go yonder,
Limber Jim!
And you can't go-oo-o!

...

So, perhaps we have a song with pre-Civil War, minstrel/blackface roots, being reappropriated by Afro-Americans along the Ohio River after the War and being greatly expanded with floater verses and also being given a "patting Juba" dimension. Perhaps this got simplified and somehow found its way into the Appalachians as a banjo tune and became either a children's song, a dance song, or a lullabye, or all three. Obviously we still have a number of missing connections.

thread.cfm?threadid=48893#739340

-snip-

Also, the Mudcat thread Origins: Shave and a Haircut thread.cfm?threadid=76296#1354811 includes this link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Diddley
Bo Diddley From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That article provides this information about the Juba beat:
"He [Bo Diddley]recorded for Chicago's Chess Records subsidiary label Checker. Bo Diddley is best known for the "Bo Diddley beat", a rhumba-based beat (see clave) also influenced by what is known as "hambone", a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes.

In its simplest form, the Bo Diddley beat can be counted out as a two-bar phrase:

One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and"