Hi Joe, here is the information from Paul Oliver 'Songsters & Saints: Vocal Traditions on Race Records' Cambridge Uni Press 1984. The following material is from pages 93 to 95. I hope it is of use to you. I unreservedly commend Oliver's book to you - it is a wonderful read and a goldmine of information.Odum and Johnson collected 3 versions - one from a quartet that came to Dayton, Tennessee; another by Kid Ellis of Spartenburg,, South Carolina, himself a professed 'travelling man'; and a third from a North Carolina Negro youth who had travelled through several states. [Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson 'Negro Workaday Songs' Chapel Hill: Uni of Nth Carolina Press 1925, p59].
Luke Jordan, born in 1872, came from Appomatox, Virginia and lived most of his life in Lynchburg. His version of 'Travelling Coon' began:
Folks let me tell you about a travellin' coon
His home was down in Tennessee
He made his livin' stealin' people's chickens
And everything he seen
Policeman got [straight] behind this coon
And certainly made him take the road
There never was a passenger train run so fast,
That Shine didn't get on board
He was a travellin' man, he was a travellin' man
He was the travellin'est man, finest was in the land
He was a travellin' man, it's known for miles around
He never give up, no, he wouldn't give up
Till the police shot him down
They sent the travellin' coon to the spring one day
To fetch a pail of water
I think the distance from the house to the spring
Sixteen miles and a quarter
The coon went there and he got the water all right
Came back stubbed 'e toe and fell down
He ran back home, he got another pail
He caught the water 'fore it hit the ground
He was a travellin' man etc.
[Luke Jordan 'Travelin' Coon' Victor 20957, recorded Charlotte, Nth Carolina, 16 August 1927.
Percy F. Dilling collected the song from 'a traveling minstrel at King's Mountain, Cleveland County, NC, in 1919. It was 'obviously of vaudeville or street-singer origin', Newman White considered, noting that several years before - possibly before 1920 - it 'circulated in Durham NC as a printed 'ballet''. This could account for the marked similarity of all collected versions in the Eastern seaboard states, but Coley Jones, who led a stringband in Dallas, Texas, probably learned it from another singer. He added a couple of verses not in the text versions:
That coon stole ten thousand dollars
It was in the broad open day time
Folks said the man was desperate
For doin' such a dirty crime
Police squad went 'n arrested
But he didn't have no fear
They tied the handcuffs around the darkey's arms
And the coon begin to disappear
He was a travelin' man, certainly was a travelin' man etc
They sentenced this coon now to be hung
He knowed his time was near
Folks all ganged up for miles around
Because the didn't have no fear
Tied a rope around this darkey's neck
Everybody begin to sigh
He crossed his legs, winked one eye
Sailed up to them skies .
[Coley Jones 'Traveling Man' Columbia 14288-D, recorded in Dallas, Texas, 4 December 1927].
Jim Jackson also recorded it. Including the 'stealing chickens' and 'pail of water' verses which are common to all versions, he added a variant of a favourite final verse:
Well a policeman got right in after this man
He run and jumped on the Titanic ship
And started up that ocean blue
He looked out and spied that big iceberg
And right overboard he flew
All the ladies on the deck of that ship
Says, 'that man certainly was a fool'
But when the Titanic ship went down
He's shootin' craps in Liverpool
[Jim Jackson 'Traveling Man' Victor V38517, recorded Memphis, Tennessee, 4 September 1928]
Oliver goes on to cite Lawrence Levine:
In his study of black oral culture, Lawrence Levine discusses the 'Travelin' Coon' (which he considers, for some reason, to a quasi-minstrel song). He sees the 'traveling man' as a trickster hero. Indeed he is, in the sense that he possesses superhuman powers, a characteristic which he shares with other trickster figures like Brother Bill or High John the Conqueror. Unlike Br'er Rabbit, the Traveling Man does not engineer the circumstances in which he plays his tricks; instead he finds himself in situations from which he escapes by magic or his wits. But not indefinitely; the Traveling Man, who as a hero in Levine's account 'is caught but not even the gallows can contain him', does succumb. Levine does not quote the chorus, but in every version 'he never give up, till the police shot him down'. He is not proof against bullets, and one gathers from the context, he was defenceless. For the Traveling Man wins through his cunning when the opportunity arises, and wins with his superior skill when he can use it. We never learn how the police shot him down, or under what circumstances. Newman White suggested that the song may relate to 'The Derby Ram' and its refrain 'he rambled and he rambled, till the buchers cut him down'. [Oliver p95].
The note to 'Black Texicans' also suggests a connection with 'He Rambled'. Oliver goes on to point out that the song was not sung, nor indeed recorded, solely by black singers. Henry Whitter, Doc Walsh and other white country singers recorded it about the same time. There was a considerable overlap of repertoires of black and white singers - hardly surprising given the common availability of records, sheet music and radio, and similar audiences for medicine show.
Oliver makes no mention of Pink Anderson. Except for a quartet of sides with Simmie Dooley in 1928, Anderson did not record until after 1943. Did he actually make a recording of 'Travelin' Man' or did Bookbinder etc learn his version from him orally? I have only a Riverside recording of Anderson and it is not on that.
--Stewie.
1927 Luke Jordan recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM3TOF5OhmQ