I am intrigued by one of the verses in Harlow's "Way Sing Sally" that Jerry has given us above. It is:

   Nigga' in the corn fiel' actin' up bold,
   Oh, Sally hit de nigga' an' knocks him out cold.

This sounds like it came right out of a "corn song" from the corn shucking frolics. I've just about finished reading Roger Abrahams' very fine book SINGING THE MASTER, THE EMERGENCE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE IN THE PLANTATION SOUTH, which is a thorough documentation of the corn shucking tradition. He discusses the role of these events in the Black/White relationships in the South before and after the Civil War. And in an extended set of appendices, he prints out almost all of the known (as of 1992) accounts of specific corn shucking events. Many of these contain song fragments and many of them have been mentioned either in the "Advent & Development of Chanties" thread or the "SF to Sidney" thread. Harlow's verse doesn't show up in any of them that I recall, but it sure sounds like it could come from that context. Given a number of our discussions on origins and development of these songs, I highly recommend this book. I could only wish that Abrahams himself had made a more direct link between this book and his book on DEEP THE WATER, SHALLOW THE SHORE.