Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)

Subject: RE: Ole Black Joe, some don't believe it exits
From: Jon W.
Date: 22 Sep 97 - 01:24 PM

Let us not forget the major role that white northern European male dominated society played in the abolition of slavery in the USA and world wide. The British (including at that time the Canadians) were among the first to renounce slavery (Scots and Irishmen, feel free to disagree) and provide safe harbor for the few African-american slaves who were able to escape. Despite that they are now despised by the PC bunch as colonists and imperialists. The Union troops who bled and died to abolish the institution should not be excoriated because their army was not integrated. People are products of their time and circumstances, and if we are seeking better understanding of historical facts, we ought to know someting about the people's feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Folklore, songs and stories in particular, are usually accurate mirrors of the (often anonymous) author's attitudes and should be recognized and preserved as such.

Subject: RE: Ole Black Joe, some don't believe it exits
From: Bert
Date: 22 Sep 97 - 03:16 PM

"Folklore, songs....., are usually accurate mirrors of the ..... author's attitudes"

I feel that they also they reflect the singers' attitudes, so I will continue to try to avoid singing songs that will offend people.

For example, when I worked in the Middle East I heard a lot of parodies that were offensive to Arabs and Islam. You won't hear me singing them either.

Subject: RE: Ole Black Joe, some don't believe it exits
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 22 Sep 97 - 03:46 PM

Ole Bull (are you a fiddler?) writes:
>And who sings for the thousands of colonists who were tortured alive, butchered or taken into the wilderness by the native >americans who were not troubled by the concepts of racial genocide; the farmers and particuarly the wives and babies who >suffered so. This is a part of our history which we convieniently forget, ignore or pretend that did not exist.

When I was in school 25 years ago, this was far from forgotten--indeed it was emphasised much more than the number of Indians killed. I don't know how things have changed.

Certainly all those killings should not be forgotten. But it's also worth remembering that contact with the Europeans and European-Americans slowly reduced the indigenous population of the Americas by 90%, through outright massacre, war, starvation, disease (which toward the end of the process some whites spread deliberately), and despair caused by bereavement and cultural destruction. The death toll during the past 500 years has been over 100 million. (This information is from an article in Science magazine a few years ago; it called the deaths of the indigenous Americans due to European settlement the greatest disaster in history.)

Of course this doesn't make the deaths of Ole Bull's ancestors any less sad or painful. Here a Navajo friend of mine might say that you can't rank suffering, that you can't say a million deaths outweigh a thousand. (Folk music provides good examples--a song protesting a fare increase on the Boston subway may be more popular than one about the Battle of the Somme.)

As for whether whites understood the plight of the slaves--I think it's obvious that initially most didn't, or why would Uncle Tom's Cabin and abolitionist speakers like Frederick Douglass have had any effect at all? What they did was open people's eyes. There was a gradual increase of awareness from the seventeenth century when slavery was widely accepted through 1865 when it was outlawed--and the attitudes that made slavery possible are still found, though rarely. However, I believe it's now possible to sing "Old Black Joe" looking at those attitudes critically rather than adopting them.

Subject: RE: Ole Black Joe, some don't believe it exits
From: Ole Bull
Date: 22 Sep 97 - 07:56 PM

It is most refreshing to see that this group is quite thought-provoking and also tolerant. Some would not respond so articulately. Thanks for your interesting conversation. You may think me unsensitive but why (in Foster's context) should "dark Virginny bride" be offensive? I find it to be quite empathetic and a sincere affectionate display. Who even today considers dark skin to be a slur (it's often a complement). Am I to think that whites should not be poetical about the saddness and conditions of another race?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Oct 13 - 04:27 PM

An excellent rendition of this song by Kenneth Spencer, bass, is available on youtube.
An African-American, Kenneth Spencer is little known today. Most recordings of his songs currently available, on vinyl, are German. He sings spirituals and Foster songs in German; interesting to listen to (youtube).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 02 Oct 13 - 06:02 AM

I remember singing Old Black Joe in grade school, and thinking, "This is sad", others thought it was funny.We had no black people in our town so they were not real.

Except for the hateful ones, which should be avoided, I think you can't change history, and some songs serve to support that old saying, "No man ever needs be a total failure; he can always serve as a bad example."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 02 Oct 13 - 06:55 AM

Some years ago I was researching Scottish melodies and found Old Black Joe was very similar to the Scottish tune "Saw ye My Father" also known as "The Grey Cock". The spiritual "Saw ye my Saviour" was printed many years before Stephen Foster wrote OBJ and was undoubtably used by him for OBJ.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Oct 13 - 12:49 PM

Looking at the scores, the resemblance is slight and seems purely coincidental.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 02 Oct 13 - 01:46 PM

Writing in The Musical Quartely, Jan - Oct 1936, George Pullen Jackson says, "The tune of the religious song above, Saw ye my Saviour, is the old Scotch air Saw ye my father or Grey Cock, according to Gilchrist (Publications of the (English) Folk Song Society, vol Vlll) and is found in both Scotch and Enlish versions. In 1834 the same appeared in Foster's own state in the German Kirchen-Harmonie, Chambersburg, Penna., p. 42, under the title Lobet den Shopfer." Jackson was comparing Old Black Joe with the melody of Saw ye my Savior.
He goes on to write ".... other echoes of the same old Scotch folk-tune appear in .....".
I noticed many examples of Scottish melodies used by Foster, too numerous and thread drifting to print here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Oct 13 - 01:39 PM

There's as much and as little reason for anyone to object to old Black Joe as there would be to a song about old Joe who as bald, or had a beard.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Oct 13 - 06:14 PM

Additional versions of "Grey Cock- Saw Ye My Father and "The Lover's Ghost posted.
Melodies (inc. scores in Bronson) bear little resemblance to the score of "Old Black Joe," except that they are all composed for verse in quatrains.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 08:56 AM

I'm sorry, Q, but the first four bars of "Saw ye my Saviour", for instance, are almost identical to OBJ.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 09:11 AM

There are, by the way, a few songs called Saw ye my Saviour. I'm talking about the one set to the tune Crucifixion, #16 in Spritual Folk-Songs of Early America. It also occurs in Olive Leaf, p. 203, where it is called "a Scotch air".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 05 Oct 13 - 11:10 AM

As a kid, I used to love Jerry Lee Lewis's version. It was on the flip side of one of his rockers!

Jerry Lee meets Old Black Joe!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: GUEST,andersle01
Date: 06 Apr 23 - 02:07 AM

Interesting conversation regarding the Stephen Foster song “Old Black Joe”. Ken Emerson, author of the book “Do-Dah”, the fictional Joe was inspired by a servant (not a slave) who worked for Foster’s father-in-law in Pittsburg, Dr. McDowell.

The song is melancholy without being bitter. It is dignified. The song has nothing to do with slaves or slavery, except maybe for words, “cotton fields away”.

It is a beautiful, dignified song. There is no reason why this song should be controversial. Replace the words, “Old Black Joe” with “poor old Joe” as sung by Paul Robeson, and the song could be about anyone.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: meself
Date: 06 Apr 23 - 03:37 PM

Rule of thumb: if there were Black people in the audience, would you sing the song? If not, then don't perform it, period. If so, then perform it for any audience.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Black Joe (Stephen Foster)
From: gillymor
Date: 06 Apr 23 - 04:19 PM

Well said, meself.
The lyrics may not be offensive but the title sure is, and I like this song.