Its nice to see this topic revived, and the discovery by Jim Dixon of the Daniel Emmit song confirms that the chorus is a lot older than the Ballad of Seth Davy, as Greg Stephens suggested on another thread about the song.

Glyn Hughes was a folk singer in Liverpool in the late 50's and 60's who died quite young, and it seems that he wrote this song about 1959 after hearing stories about Seth Davy from older people who remembered seeing him. Glyn Hughes recorded the song for Fritz Spiegl about 1959, and amazingly, some years later, Fritz Spiegl discovered some old lantern slides of Liverpool scenes one of which featured a group of children watching a black man in a bowler hat making some wooden dolls dance on a plank. The scene can definitely be identified as being outside the Bevington House Hotel in Liverpool. All this information comes from the late Fritz Spiegl's Liverpool Street Songs and Broadside Ballads published by the Scouse Press as Liverpool Packet No 1.

Seth Davy is also mentioned by Ray Costello in Black Liverpool: The Early History of Britain's Oldest Black Community 1730-1918 as "another black street entertainer...a West African often seen in the Scotland Road area of the city accompanying his cheerful songs with a dancing puppet show."

The Black community in Liverpool has made a substantial contribution to the musical and cultural life of the city (and the world) which is only belatedly being acknowledged. Seth Davy, like Billy Waters earlier on in London, was a street entertainer who deserves celebrating. Some other Liverpool black musicians include the jazz musician Gordon Stretton, the 60's soul singers Joe and Eddie Ankrah of the Chants, and the great Cavern singer Derry Wilkie.