Bessie Jones was extremely important in keeping alive and popularizing the Black traditions of the Georgia Sea Islands. She's dead now, but Doug Quimby and some of her other children are carrying on her work. "Little Johnny Brown" is one of the play parties she taught (Little Johnny Brown, lay your comfort down.) I believe that "Zodiac" also came from her. And I remember one more that she taught, which started

There was a man down in Brewster
Who had two hens and a rooster
The rooster died, oh how we cried
They don't lay eggs like they used ta

The dancer in the middle acted out the agonies of the slaves who were beaten for going to visit their girlfriends on the other farm in spite of the fact that they no longer had the excuse of going there to buy eggs.

Jacob