Origins: Coal Black Rose

Subject: Lyr Add: COAL BLACK ROSE
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 12:18 PM

In the DT we have a sea shanty version of this song collected by Stan Hugill from his SONGS OF THE SEVEN SEAS, p. 274, from a favorite Barbados informant Harding the Barbarian; Hugill also notes that the song was also collected by Frank T. Bullen and was used for work at the halyards. Here's the version in the DT:

COAL BLACK ROSE

Oh, me Rosie, coal black rose
Don't ye hear the banjo
Ping-a-pong-a-pong?
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

Oh, me Rosie, coal black Rose,
Strung up like a banjo,
Allu taut an' long,
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

Oh, me Rosie, coal black Rose,
The yard is now a-movin',
Hauley-hauley ho!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

The Mate he comes around, boys,
Dinging an' a dang.
Hauley-hauley ho!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

Give her one more pull, boys,
Rock an' roll 'er high.
Hauley-hauley ho!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

Neil Downey sings a version of this song with Barry Finn and chorus on their CD titled FATHOM THIS with the following verses that he has cobbled together:

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
Don't ye hear the banjo
Ping-a-pong-a-pong?
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
Up aloft
This yard must go!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
Strung up like a banjo,
Taut an' long,
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
The yard is now a-movin',
Hauley-hauley, ho!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
The Mate he comes around, boys,
Dinging an' a dang!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
Back in to it, boys,
Rock an' roll 'er high!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
One more pull, boys,
Rock an' roll 'er high!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
Don't ye hear the banjo
Ping-a-pong-a-pong?
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
Skipper's on the beach
An' he can't get none!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
Up aloft
This yard must go!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

O, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose,
One more pull,
An' then belay!
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

I was thinking that this shanty was likely derived from a minstrel song and evidently I am correct:

From America's Musical Life: A History, by Richard Crawford, published by W. W. Norton & Co., © 2001, pp. 201-202

"Coal Black Rose" a song from the 1820's, depicts a black romance that disintegrates into deceit and violence. The song is sung by Sambo who is wooing the heroine:

Lubly Rosa, Samo cum,
Don't you hear de Banjo – tum, tum, tum;
Lubly Rosa, Sambo cum,
Don't you hear de Banjo – tum, tum, tum;
Oh Rose, de coal black Rose,
I wish I may be cortch'd if I don't lub Rose,
Oh Rose, de coal black Rose!

When Sambo shows up unexpectedly at Rose's cabin, she asks him to wait outside in the cold while she builds a fire. Then she lets him in. The two sit warming themselves until Sambo spots Cuffee, a rival suitor, trying to hide in the dark room's corner. And during the fight that follows, he changes his song's refrain:

Oh Rose, take care Rose!
I wish I may be burnt if I don't hate Rose,
Oh Rose, you blacka snake Rose!

Further note: "cortch'd" may be dialect for "scorched" given the above reference to "burnt."

The above is an excerpt from the book available on-line. I don't yet have the complete lyrics of the minstrel song but the mission should not be too difficult if I can contact Richard Crawford. Someone else may have more luck teasing out the full sheet music from the internet.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 01:25 PM

Mamie's Little Coal Black Rose is a coon song from 1916:

Sheet Music Lyrics


Title: Mammy's Little Coal Black Rose
Lyrics: Raymond Egan
Music: Richard A. Whiting

I heard a pickaninny crying
Down in Tennessee one night;
His little heart was nearly breaking
Just because he wasn't white;
Then his dear old Mammy kiss'd him
And she said "Chile don' you sigh
Weep no more, my baby,"
Then she sang a Dixie Lullaby:

And then I saw that dear old Mammy
Kiss those baby tears away
While in her arms the baby nestled
Happy as a child at play;
Then she whispered "Mammy loves you,
You're as sweet as 'possum pie,
Go to sleep, my honey, While your mammy sings a lullaby"

Chorus

You better dry your eyes, my little Coal Black Rose
(and don't you cry)
You better go to sleep and let those eyelids cloes
(just hush a-by)
'Cause you're dark, don't start apinin'
Your're a cloud with a silver lining;
Tho' ev'ry old crow thinks his babe am white as snow,
Your dear old Mammy knows you're mighty like a rose;
And when the angels gave those kinky curls to you
(so curly que)
They put a sunbeam in your disposition too, that's true,
The reason you're so black I 'spose
They forgot to give your Mammy a talcum powder chamois,
So don't you cry, don't you sigh,
'Cause you're mammy's little Coal Black Rose.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 01:35 PM

Sinsull-

Very true but evidently not structurally related to the sea shanty or the minstrel song in question. I did plow through a lot of references to that version of "Coal Black Rose" before I struck paydirt. It is an interesting song, however, in raising the question of color back in 1916, that black can be beautiful.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 01:43 PM

The minstrel song is available at American Memory. It was popular for a very long time, and there are remakes by various minstrel groups.
I will transcribe it from a song sheet later today, if no one gets to it first. Its first verses are the same as those in the book by Crawford.
The marine references of the chantey are not from the original.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 01:49 PM

Q-

A transcription is eagerly awaited.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 02:09 PM

Somewhat off topic:

For those who may be interested, see this quote from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=2 about the name "Sambo":

"Sambo (2)
stereotypical name for male black person (now only derogatory), 1818, Amer.Eng., probably a different word from sambo (1); like many such words (Cuffy, Rastus, etc.) a common personal name among U.S. blacks in the slavery days (first attested 1704 in Boston), probably from an African source, cf. Foulah sambo "uncle," or a similar Hausa word meaning "second son." Used without conscious racism or contempt until circa World War II. When the word fell from polite usage, collateral casualties included the enormously popular children's book "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman), which actually is about an East Indian child, and the Sambo's Restaurant chain, a U.S. pancake-specialty joint originally opened in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1957 (the name supposedly from a merging of the names of the founders, Sam Battistone and Newell "Bo" Bohnett, but the chain's decor and advertising leaned heavily on the book), which once counted 1,200 units coast-to-coast. Civil rights agitation against it began in 1970s and the chain collapsed, though the original restaurant still is open. Many of the defunct restaurants were taken over by rival Denny's."

-snip-

I've read elsewhere about the African origins of the name "Sambo".
Btw, "Hausa" and "Foulah" are names of two ethnic groups in Nigeria. Other group names for the "Foulah" people are "Fulani, or Fellata, or Foulah, or Fulbe, or Fule, or Peul". From my reading, I'm also aware that a number of enslaved African people in the USA and elsewhere were given African & Arabic names by their parents or others in their community. Three examples of those names are the Yoruba {Nigeria} female names "Tene" {pronounced tah-NAY}, and "Ola" {pronounced OH-lah}-though there are also European sources for the name "Ola"- and the male nickname "Mookie" {probably from the Congolese male nickname "Moke {moh-KAY}, though in the USA "Mookie" is pronounced "MOO-key". But even after the late 1960s and early 1970s custom was established {or re-established} of giving African or Arabic names to African Americans, or folks selecting such a name for themselves, because of its negative connotations, the name "Sambo" is rarely [if ever] given to African American children.
However, the nickname Sam is widely found among African Americans, and the practice of using that nickname may have come from the African name and the Hebrew name "Samuel". As a matter of fact, there are a number of traditional African & Arabic personal names which sound like certain Hebrew names or European names or nicknames.

**

The name "Cuff" which is also used in the "Coal Black Rose" song and elsewhere is a corruption of the Akan {Ghana} male day name name "Kofi". "Kofi means "male born on Friday". Btw, the Ashanti {more correctly written "Asante" but pronounced with a "h" sound} are one group of Akan {Twi speaking} people. A number of Akan day names are found-usually in their variant forms-on slave records in the USA, the Caribbean, and South America. One contemporary public figure who ise named "Kofi" is Kofi A. Annan, of Ghana, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. "Atta" is an Akan unisex name for the elder twin. "Anan" is an Akan unisex name which means "the fourth born child".


For those interested, here's a wikipedia page with information on Akan names:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akan_name

And for those who don't like wikipedia, here's another link to a online resource on Akan names:
http://home.wxs.nl/~degenj/ghana1/gh-names.html

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 02:14 PM

Sorry. I meant to write that Kofi Annan's full name is Kofi Atta Annan {which is why I gave that information about the name "Atta".

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 02:37 PM

Multiple copies available at Levy, most undated, but one dated 1829 (I didn't check them all out).

Mick

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 02:44 PM

Lyr. Add: COAL BLACK ROSE
(L. Deming song sheet)

Lubly Rosa, Sambo cum,
Don't you hear de banjo- tum, tum, tum;
Lubly Rosa, Sambo cum,
Don't you hear de banjo- tum, tum, tum.

Cho.
Oh, Rose, de coal black Rose,
I wish I may be corch'd if I don't lub Rose,
Oh, Rose, de coal blacka Rose.

Dat you, Sambo- yes I cum,
Don't you hear de banjo- tum, tum, tum;
Dat you, Sambo- yes I cum,
Don't you hear de banjo- tum, tum, tum;
Oh, Rose, etc.

Tay a little, Sambo, I come soon
As I make a fire in de back room,
Tay a little, Sambo, I come soon
As I make a fire in de back room.
Oh, Rose, de coal black Rose,
I wish I may be burnt if I don't lub Rose.

Oh, Rose, etc.

Make haste, Rose, lubly dear,
I froze tiff as a poker tandin here,
Make haste, Rose, lubly dear,
I almost froze a waitin' here.

Oh, Rose, etc.

Cum in Sambo, don't tand dare shakin,
De fire is a burnin, and de hoe cake a bakin,
Cum in Sambo, top dat shakin,
De peas in de pot, and de hoe cake a bakin.

Oh, Rose, etc.

Sit down, Sambo, an warm your shin,
Lord bress you, honey, for what makin you grin;
Sit down, Sambo, and toast your shin,
Lord bress you, honey, for what make you grin.

Oh, Rose, etc.

I laff to tink if you was mine, lubly Rose,
I'd gib you a plenty, the Lord above knows,
Ob possum fat, and homminy, and sometime rice,
Cow heel, and sugar cane, an ebery ting nice,
Oh, Rose, bress dat Rose,
I wish I may be shute if I don't lub Rose.

Oh, Rose, etc.

What dat, Rose, in de corner, dat I pi?
I know dat nigger Cuffee, by de white ob he eye;
Dat not Cuffee, 'tis a tick ob wood, sure,
A tick ob wood wid tocking on, you tell me dat, pshaw;
Oh, Rose, take care, Rose,
I wish I may be burnt if I don't hate Rose.
Oh, Rose, you black snake, Rose.

Let go my arm, Rose, let me at him rush,
I swella his two lips like a blacka balla brush;
Let go my arm, Rose, let me top his win,
Let go my arm, Rose, while I kick him on de shin,

Oh, Rose, etc.

Wat you want ob Sambo, to come back agin,
I spose you know de nigger by de crook ob de shin,
Wat you want ob Sambo, to come back agin,
I spose you know de nigger by de crook of de shin,

Oh, Rose, etc.

You Rose in the gall'ry, why don't you quiet sit,
And stop that throwing peanuts in the pit,
You Rose in the gall'ry, why don't you quiet sit,
And stop that throwing peanuts in the pit;
Oh, Rose, you cruel Rose,
You better come to Cuffee, you black Rose.

Oh, Rose, etc.

I challenge niggar Cuffee, a duel for to fight,
To meet me in de Park, in de morning by de light,
I challenge niggar Cuffee, a duel for to fight,
To meet me in de Park, in de morning by de light,
About Rose, coal black Rose,
I wish I may be burnt, if I don't lub Rose.

About Rose, etc.

We meet in de Park, from de Hall a little ways,
Up cum a man, who they call massa Hays,
He ask wat de matter, but I stood quite mute,
Nigger Cuffee say he cum to settle a bit of spute,

About Rose, etc.

He catch old Cuffee by de wool, he dick him on de shin,
Which laid him breathless on the ground, and made de nigger grin,
He jump up for sartin, he cut dirt and run,
And Sambo follow arter, with his tum, tum, tum;
Oh, Rose, you cruel Rose,
I wish I may be burnt, if I don't hate Rose.

Oh, Rose, etc.

Sold, wholesale and retail, by L. DEMING, No. 62, Hanover Street, 2d from Friend Street, Boston. Nineteenth Century song sheet.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html and search Music.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 03:20 PM

Brown University collections (African-American Sheet Music) have sheet music that they date c. 1827.
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository/repoman.php?verb=render&id=111161053662500&view=multipage

This version is much like the one on the song sheet, but the interplay from Rose in the gallery, and the duel, are absent.
"Snyder, White," is listed as composer for the copies at Brown University.

Following the verse about "I swella his two lips like a blacka balla brush;" the scenario continues as follows:

10
I ketch hold of Cuffee, I take him by de wool,
I ketch hold of Cuffee, he try away to pull
But I up wid a foot, and kick him on de shin,
Which put him breafless on de floor & make de nigger grin
   Oh, Rose, take care Rose!
I wish I may be burnt if I don't hate Rose,
Oh, Rose you blacka snake Rose!

He jump up for sartin, he cut dirt an run-
Now Sambo follow arter wid his tum, tum, tum,
He jump up for sartin, he cut dirt an run-
Now Sambo follow arter wid his tum, tum, tum,
Oh, Rose, curse dat Rose
I wish Massa Hays would ketch dat Rose,
Oh, Rose, you blacka snake Rose!

The sheet music is for guitar, piano, forte. The song is shorter, I would suspect it is an older version than the one in the song sheet, and the reference to 'Massa' Hays puts the version into the slavery period.

Sambo and Cuffee were stock comic figures in the minstrel shows, and appeared in many different routines.

Subject: Lyr Add: COAL BLACK ROSE
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 11:19 PM

What I'm now wondering is if there is a minstrel version that shares these verses with the sea shanty, the verses that don't seem to have anything to do with sailing:

Oh, me Rosie, coal black rose
Don't ye hear the banjo
Ping-a-pong-a-pong?
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

Oh, me Rosie, coal black Rose,
Strung up like a banjo,
Allu taut an' long,
On, me Rosie, Coal Black Rose!

I suspect these two verses were similiar as starting verses in the shanty, from ship to ship, and were derived from some minstrel version.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 11:53 PM

The Oh, 'me' Rosie was put in by some chantey singer, 'me' would not have been used in a minstrel song, unless perhaps it was in a show by one of the UK companies that borrowed American material. Use of 'ye' in minstrel songs also dubious.
The 'Strung up like a banjo, all taut an' long,' also sounds peculiarly salty (chantey) to me.
I looked at the Levy and Brown copies, found no such verse.

Not impossible, but unlikely.

Hugill, in Shanties from the Seven Seas, called "Coal Black Rose" a pure Negro shanty, p. 274 in the Mystic reprint, and elsewhere in that volume refers to it as a "pure Negro ditty," which is nonsense. He made the same mistake with others; one of which likely is Gulf Irish, or Conch, but not Negro.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 03:02 AM

What's "Gulf Irish" & "Conch"?
Thanks for the additional info on this song.
Does anyone one else know whose's recorded this, Neil's the only one I've ever heard sing it. I've never heard Tommy O'Sullivan's recording.
Why dispute this as a pure negro shantey?
Does anyone have this in any other collection (as a shantey) aside from Hugill & Bullen? I havent seen Bullen's redition, if someone has it would they please post that version?

Thanks
Barry

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 02:23 PM

I should probably expand on what I was saying about the two verses above. I suspect they are traceable to verses used by minstrel singers, unlike the obviously shipboard shanty verses. And these may be the "core verses" of the shanty as passed on from one shantysinger to another, with the other verses sharing lines in common with many other shanties.

This is hardly an original idea. Bob Walser was doing a workshop this year at the Mystic Sea Music festival where he was analyzing old recordings of shanties, and he found a similar pattern of a standard introductory verse or two for many shanties, followed by a variety of verses. What surprised Bob was that the melody for the introductory verses was always very similar from shantyman to shantyman but then varied considerably from verse to verse even within the recording of a single shantyman.

I now am curious about the composer of the minstrel version of this song described above as L. Deming (Leonard Deming?).

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 03:33 PM

There was some earlier discussion in the threads of "Coal Black Rose" and an additional reference surfaced (God knows from where):

"A folk song originally introduced by minstrel singers Thomas Blakeley and George Washington Dixon in 1829"

I'm now convinced that L. Deming was only the publisher of the above text.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 04:30 PM

Finally tracked down the reference to Blakeley and Dixon:

"Coal Black Rose
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sheet music to "Coal Black Rose", c. 1830

"Coal Black Rose" is a folk song, one of the earliest songs to be sung by a man in blackface. The song was first performed in the United States in the late 1820s, possibly by George Washington Dixon. It was certainly Dixon who popularized the song when he put on three blackface performances at the Bowery Theatre, the Chatham Garden Theatre, and the Park Theatre in late July 1829. These shows also propelled Dixon to stardom.[1]
During the height of its popularity, the general assumption was that Dixon's performances of "Coal Black Rose" in 1829 were the birth of blackface minstrelsy.[2] However, Thomas Blakeley had also performed the song in 1829 at the Park Theatre.[3] "Coal Black Rose" entered the repertoires of other performers, who sung it both in and out of blackface.
The lyrics of "Coal Black Rose" proved a good source for dramatic farce. Dixon performed one on 24 September 1829 under the title Love in a Cloud at the Bowery Theatre.[2] Thomas D. Rice did other dramatitizations under the titles Long-Island Juba; or, Love in a Bushel and Oh Hush!; or The Virginny Cupids. The latter version became one of the most popular farces of antebellum minstrelsy.[4]

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 05:45 PM

Brown University lists Snyder, White, as composer(s?) for the 1827 sheet music of Coal Black Rose. No supporting data. I would tend to Dixon myself.

I can't see how such a popular song would bypass White sailors and go to a "pure Negro" chantey. That doesn't make sense. Hugill got his information from a West Indian friend Harding of Barbados. He makes no mention of the minstrel origin and apparently was not aware of it.

"Rosie, she's the gal for me"- I made a note of a song with this title discussed somewhere as an Irish song from New Orleans. I can't re-find, so I hope my mind isn't playing tricks.

Not reallypertinent, but see the West Indies game song, "Brown Gal in da Ring" posted somewhere in Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Greg B
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 06:59 PM

>[regarding the Sambo's restaurant chain] Many of the defunct
>restaurants were taken over by rival Denny's

Kind of ironical, isn't it, that Denny's restaurants keep getting
dinged for various forms of racism, such as making black folks pay
up front at the time they order, etc.?

As they say, be careful of what you wish for...

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 07:29 PM

Sambo's Restaurant, the original, is celebrating its 50th year in operation. Santa Barbara, California.
I ate there a while back. A bit of nostalgia, like some of the hotels and cafes still in operation along Route 66.
http://www.sambosrestaurant.com
Sambo
For a real blast from the past try their steak and eggs, served with your choice of pancakes or toast and the usual choice of hash browns etc.
If a bit peckish, try Mama Mumbo's Special with two eggs and four Sambo's pancakes, loaded with butter and syrup.

Incidentally, the name Sambo's comes from SAM Battistone and Newell BOhnett, founders, known as Sam and Bo.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 07:34 PM

Q-

"I can't see how such a popular song would bypass White sailors and go to a "pure Negro" chantey. That doesn't make sense."

I agree with you that the song was widely popular for years as a minstrel song. The composer was most likely George Washington Dixon who was white and performed in blackface. However, the audience for minstrel songs included both black and white members.

It seems to me that the songs was probably brought aboard ship by a sailor (or sailors), either black or white, and sung at first for entertainment. Then a shantyman got hold of it and adapted it for shantying at the halyards.

Some of the best shantymen were from the West Indies, such as Hugill's shipmate and informant Harding the Barbarian whom he describes as having "sailed in many Yankee, British, and Bluenose sailing vessels as well as West Indian barques..." The version of the song Hugill collected shares many similarities with other West Indies shanties collected by Roger Abrahams and others. However, there may be other versions out there, including the one collected by Frank T. Bullen in his SONGS OF SEA LABOR, © 1914.

The search goes on!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: oldhippie
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 08:07 PM

I remember eating at a Sambo's just north of Charleston SC in the late 70s/early 80s. Did they have the tiger mascot from the beginning?

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Aug 07 - 09:03 PM

Sambo's Restaurant in Santa Barbara, California, is the original, still in the same family ownership, and celebrating its 50th year. Yes, the tiger mascot dates from the beginning.
www.sambosrestaurant.com
Sambo
The name comes from SAM and BO, originators of the franchise (Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett).

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Aug 07 - 08:09 PM

Evidently my post about other minstrel songs being adapted for shanties or forebitters went into the Great Mudcat Black Hole. Too bad! It was a wonderful list. But not to worry! I evidently kept a copy:

We should be keeping a list of how many minstrel songs came aboard and were transformed into shanties or forebitters.

Coal Black Rose

Get Up, Jack, John Sit Down

Round the Corner Sally

Doodle Let Me Go

Miss Lucy Long

Gimme de Banjo

Hilo, Boys, Hilo

And I can't resist a note on "Hilo" which in some shanties is a reference to a favorite port in Western South America but this version is unrelated to that seaport town being transcribed by one curious observor much earlier from a plantation field song:

Oh, this is the day to roll and go,
Hill-up, boys, hilo;
Oh, this is the day to roll and go,
Hill-up, boys, hilo!

It's also of interest that such "nautical" phrases as "roll and go" and "rock and roll" first appeared in the plantation field songs.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Aug 07 - 08:32 PM

Only the English pronounce the port in the chantey Hilo correctly- they can't pronounce an aiche and leave it off.

Charley, the English had that sense of rock in 1297 (printed). Roll in the nautical sense probably just as old- nautical usages from the 16th c. in the OED.
These words have been used in so many ways, both verb and noun, that they cover pages in the OED.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Aug 07 - 08:57 PM

Q-

It's also true that the slaves on the southern plantations had to learn those words and phrases from the slave owners but they made the phrases a distinct part of their dialect in their songs.

I actually haven't run across "roll and go" and "rock and roll" in any land-based English traditional songs. Have you?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Aug 07 - 11:55 PM

True enough, I don't know of them in the phrases, but the meaning is clear enough from the words rock and roll by themselves. "Rolling Down Wapping" with double meaning perhaps goes back before 1800.
I put a few comments about the words in thread 67154, Johnny Bowker (Johnny Boker, another minstrel song, I think you have already noted that).
Old Johnny Bucker

There is the old English song- the lad is getting married as the result of an encounter- "Rolling in the Grass." (Bodleian)
"Rolling Down Wapping," many versions.
"Roll Your Old Barrel Along"- Workmen were rolling kegs, etc. before they rolled bales of cotton.
"Roly Poly Among the Clover" is an old favorite- The Oxford Dictionary seems to steer clear of the sexual uses of roll, and rock, but there are examples out there.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 08:43 AM

Q-

We may be on a "roll" here!

I do seem to recall that a wench in one of our old folksongs was being thusly encouraged:

"Roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll!"

Then there's:

"Roll me over in the clover an' do it again" (related to "Roly Poly Among the Clover"?)

Whatever that means, other than clover stains.

Probably the important generalization about the impact of the minstrel songs is that it was huge and prolonged, from the late 1820's to well into the early 1900's, and evidently worldwide from Australia to Europe to the West Indies.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 01:03 PM

Probably the important generalization about the impact of the minstrel songs is that it was huge and prolonged, from the late 1820's to well into the early 1900's, and evidently worldwide from Australia to Europe to the West Indies.

Charley, you forgot South Africa.

See this excerpt from:


CROSSROADS
From Homeland to Township
Rap Music and South African Choral Tradition
Sandra Jackson-Opoku and Michael West


"A cappella communal singing has long been central to southern African music. Long before European contact, traditional Nguni choruses sang in complicated call-and-response polyphony, usually accompanied by dance movements. A Christianized, westernized version of this music emerged during the nineteenth-century missionary period. And then, around the turn of the twentieth century, the "coon" shows came to town. The music would never be the same.

Both black and "blackface" minstrel troupes toured South Africa. None were more popular than the renowned McAdoo Jubilee Singers. Their performances had an electrifying effect on black South Africa. The troupe was led by Orpheus McAdoo, an ex-slave who had broken away from the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1890. In the 1870s the Fisk singers had been the first African American choral group to undertake a worldwide tour.

Imagine the scene: The curtains are closed as the audience waits. Word has spread from Cape Town and Kimberly about these amazing black singers from across the Atlantic. The crowd is an eclectic mix: cattle keepers from the villages, migrant workers from the townships, and mission-educated wage earners from the cities. A few mixed-race people, "Cape coloreds" who have come east in the wake of the white Voertrekker migrations, are scattered among them. A handful of whites occupy choice seats in the front rows. Strains of music are heard, and every black, brown, and white face turns toward the stage.

The curtain opens. The McAdoo Singers take the stage, opening their concert of African American minstrel and plantation songs as they usually do with a choral performance of "Negro spirituals." The audience is captivated by a music that is at once foreign and familiar. "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" seems to speak to their souls.

McAdoo's group was enjoyed immensely by segregated audiences wherever it sang: from the urban areas of Cape Town and Durban to the diamond-mining center of Kimberly and the gold-rush boomtown of Johannesburg to rural areas like Zululand. But the minstrel and spiritual tunes the McAdoo Singers specialized in found most fertile ground among the country's black population. One simplistic explanation offered in Eric Rosenthal's 1938 book The Stars and Stripes in Africa was that "the simple-minded black from the kraal was immensely impressed by the sophisticated dress of his brother from the far side of the Atlantic."

But sympathies actually ran far deeper. In African Stars (1991), German ethnomusicologist Veit Erhlmann writes of modern South African music: "The numerous parallels between Black American and Black South African humor, folklore, and popular culture were not only the result of concrete historic contact over a period of more than one hundred years. They were also based on similar experiences of racial discrimination and prejudice."

Taking the "coon" stereotype and turning it on its head, Zulu choirs reworked the crudely drawn racial images and infused them with elements of traditional and mission music to create a choral tradition they proudly called isikhunzi, the core word coon becoming a synonym for style and sophistication. Nattily dressed in high Harlem style, groups like the Pirate Coons and AmaNigel Coons sang minstrel favorites like "Oh Dem Golden Slippers" and also wrote their own tunes. Over the years this developed into the mbube style popularized by Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds. Mbube is Zulu for "lion," and Linda penned "Wimoweh," the definitive mbube classic, popularized in the United States by Pete Seeger and the Weavers"...

http://www.worldandi.com/public/1994/april/cl1.cfm
Issue Date: APRIL 1994 Volume: 09 Page: 229

-snip-

I was fortunate enough to find the book African Stars in my local public library. I really didn't want to give it back. This excerpt reminded me that this is one book that I've got to buy-if any copies of it are still available at a reasonable price.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 02:00 PM

African Stars in paperback is about $11 from online sellers (Abebooks.com). Probably cheaper in a used bookstore near you.
Sounds interesting.

Subject: RE: Origins: Coal Black Rose
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 05:10 PM

Azizi-

What fun to learn even more about the impact of the minstrel singers, and that there was more to this style of singing than the first impression that many people have. Some of the songs are still odious, racist stereotypes at their worst. But others are really more like folksongs or gospel songs, and some were even protest songs.

Thanks for the reference to African Stars. I'm eager to add it to my library.

I still haven't found any trace of the two minstrel groups that our old family friend Ella Madison Robinson sang with in the 1880's and 1890's; she toured Europe about ten times, first with "The Virginia Duo" managed by Charles Asbury (NYC) and then with "The female Quartet" managed by Herman Lindy (NYC). I can't find a trace in my Goggle searches.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble