JOHNNY COME DOWN TO HILO in the DT.

From The Traditional Ballad Index:

Johnny Walk Along to Hilo

DESCRIPTION: Shanty, with chorus, "Johnny walk along to Hilo, Oh, poor old man, Oh, wake her, oh, shake, her, Oh, wake that gal with the blue dress on!" The verses usually consist of a scattering of lines from assorted Black and minstrel songs
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (Sharp-EFC)
KEYWORDS: shanty nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Doerflinger, p. 72, "Johnny Walk Along to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Colcord, p. 102, "Johnny Come Down to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill, pp. 266-268, "Johnny Come Down to Hilo," "The Gal With the Blue Dress" (3 texts, 3 tunes) [AbEd, pp. 196-197]
Sharp-EFC, XVI, p. 19, "O Johnny Come to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 483-485, "Johnny Come Down to Hilo" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, JOHNHILO*
Roud #650
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Johnny Come Down to Hilo" (on PeteSeeger04)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Uncle Ned" (floating lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Johnny Come Down the Backstay
Johnny Come to Hilo
Shake Her, Johnny, Shake Her!
NOTES: Doerflinger says of this song that it was "doubtless invented by colored shellbacks, but [was] just as popular with whites" -- and indeed, Doerflinger's version is in white dialect while Lomax has a Black text. Even more interestingly, they don't have any lyrics in common except the chorus -- Doerflinger's only lyric is from "Uncle Ned," which the Lomax version does not quote. - RBW
File: Doe072a

---

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2015 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

---

There're are two seemingly related songs in John Greenway's American Folksongs of Protest (1953; rpt. Octagon Press, 1970, pp. 94-95) [no mention of Emmett; without music]:

JOHNNY COME DOWN DE HOLLOW

Johnny come down de hollow--
  Oh, hollow.
De nigger trader got he--
  Oh, hollow.
De speculator bought me--
  Oh, hollow.
I'm sold for silver dollars--
  Oh, hollow.
Boys, go catch de pony--
  Oh, hollow.
Bring him round de corner--
  Oh, hollow.
I'm goin' way to Georgia--
  Oh, hollow.
Boys, good-bye forever.
  Oh, hollow.
 --H.M. Henry, The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina, p. 56.

HILO! HILO!

William Rino sold Henry Silvers--
  Hilo! Hilo!
Sold him to de Georgy trader--
  Hilo! Hilo!
His wife se cried, and children bawled--
  Hilo! Hilo!
Sold him to de Georgy trader--
  Hilo! Hilo!
  --J.D. Long, Pictures of Salvery, Philadelphia, 1857, p. 198.

~Masato