The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4101   Message #3695396
Posted By: GUEST,Guest 2
20-Mar-15 - 04:02 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Sugar Babe (Mance Lipscomb, Tom Rush, etc
Subject: RE: Origins: Sugar Babe (Mance Lipscomb, Tom Rush, etc
I'd like to know the origins of sugar babe, myself, but back in the 60s it was a frequently played song, but in the structure used by Johnny Cash for what is known apparently as "Chattanooga Sugar Babe". Heard this on "Fresh Air" in a discussion with Cash's longtime Dobro man. Anyway in the 60s it was usually a clean version, so I was surprised that this version (using the structure I was familiar with) started out with reference to cocaine. I got to thinking that maybe a lot of the folk songs for us innocents then had been cleaned up from the originals that might have dated back to the 20s or 30s or even before. "Bawdy Ballads" might have been the title of a collection of lyrics back then. Of course you had to be familiar with ancient slang or regional dialects or know where to look it up if there was even a book that collected such things then. Other such dictionaries were appearing by the 60s or 70s to update the ancient tracts of the 30s. I know because I used to consult them in my work as a lexicographer. So what was the first recording of the structure used by Cash? I thought I heard the name Frank Jackson mentioned in the broadcast. Hmm?