Alan Lomax noted that it began as a genuine plantation ring game: 'This old ring game tells of the longing of the slaves for the good things on their master's table. The children, of course, felt the sharpest pangs'. [A.Lomax 'Folk Songs of North America' Doubleday 1960 p492].

Henry Whitter's recording is an harmonica solo, so the Skillet Lickers' recording would be the first commercial hillbilly recording of it with vocals.

It is interesting to recall that Whitter was the first old-timey artist to record, some 4 months before Fiddlin' John Carson who 'sparked Okeh's hillbilly movement'. Whitter, a Virginia millhand went to NYC early in March 1923 and somehow persuaded Fred Hager, Okeh's concert and studio band director, to record him. Tests pressings were made of some instrumentals and ballads. His 'Lonesome Road Blues' and 'Wreck of the Southern Old '97', which was later to be made famous by others, were released early in 1924. Archie Green points out that these had master numbers that indicated a December 1923 session and that either Whitter's March test pressings were not assigned master numbers until December 1923 or Whitter was called back to re-record his own material. [ref. Archie Green 'Hillbilly Music: Source and Symbol' Journal of American Folklore July-Sept 1965].

--Stewie.