The original 'I Got Mine' was a 'coon song' from 1901. It was written by a white writer from New Orleans, a travelling show entertainer by the name of John Queen, and the music was by Charles Cartwell. Ironically, 'coon songs' were sung by both whites and blacks, and blacks even chose to record them for the Race market. This one became a great favourite among blacks. Before 1910, Howard Odum described 'a version of a once popular song "I Got Mine" [which] has been adapted by the Negro and is sung with hilarity'. It must have entered the tradition fairly quickly - Newman White published several examples: collected in Choctaw Co, Alabama, from 'a Negro guitar picker'; in Campbell Co, Georgia, 'as sung by an old Negro cook (male)'; in northern Alabama as 'sung on a road working camp' between 1915 and 1916; and in Durham, NC, in 1919 from 'a Negro minstrel show'. The first black recorded version was in October 1926 by 'Big Boy' George Owens under the title 'The Coon Crap Game' (Gennett 6006).

Newman wrote in 1928 that it was 'a popular vaudeville song about 20 years ago, probably not a Negro song at all. But the Negroes have taken it up extensively'. As noted above, it was even earlier than that - 1901. Paul Oliver notes that most of the recorded versions kept fairly closely to Queen's lyrics, but 'they generally expanded the themes using the original framework'. A good example is Frank Stokes' August 1928 recording (Victor 38512).

Paul Oliver explains:

The point of most of the verses is that the singer wins, even if it is by beating a hasty exit, by cheating or by scooping up the stakes, or by making an undignified departure through the window; he looks after his own interests first. Retribution generaly follows at least once and 'I got mine' means a beating up or a sentence, dealt with humorously and ruefully. It was a song which used a familiar minstrel show situation but allowed for amusing variations, effective with both white and coloured audiences, who doubtless interpreted the shades of meaning rather differently. [Paul Oliver 'Songsters and Saints' Uni of Cambridge Press 1984, pp 88-89]

It was a great favourite of Pink Anderson who spent a lifetime in the medicine shows. However, 'I Got Mine' was not included among the handful of titles that Pink recorded with Simmie Dooley in 1928.

The song was recorded by numerous old-timey artists, including Fiddlin' John Carson who was first cab off the rank, even before 'Big Boy' Owens, with a recording for Okeh in March 1924 (OK 40119). Other recordings include ones by Ernest Thompson (under the title 'The Coon Crap Game'), Bill Chitwood & Bud Landress, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers', John McGhee and Chris Bouchillon.

The above information came mostly from Paul Oliver 'Songsters and Saints' and Meade et alia 'Country Music Sources'.

--Stewie.