Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' on the Levee

Subject: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 07:57 AM

"Workin' On the Levee (Levee Song)" crops up briefly among the threads on "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad."

I quote from Masato Sakurai in thread http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=50253#763018:

"James J. Fuld writes in The Book of World-Famous Music, 4th ed. (Dover, 1996, p. 309): "The first known appearance in print of I've Been Working on the Railroad is under the title Levee Song, in Carmina Princetonia (8th ed., Martin R. Dennis & Co., Newark, N.J., 1894), p. 24." This version doesn't have the "Someone's in the Kitchen" part. It would be interesting to quote the whole song, from my copy of Carmina Princetonia: The Princeton Song Book, 21th ed. (G Shirmer, 1927, pp. 70-71).

LEVEE SONG
(copyright, 1894, by Martin R. Dennis & Co.)

1.   (SOLO) I once did know a girl named Grace--
      (QUARTET) I'm wukkin' on de levee;
      (SOLO) She done brung me to dis sad disgrace
      (QUARTET) O' wukkin' on de levee.

Chorus:
I been wukkin' on de railroad
All de livelong day ...... "

But it is more than just a piece of "I've Been Workin' ... "
I've found four verses to it, which I'll quote in the next message.

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 08:09 AM

Below is "The Levee Song."

Does anyone know anything more about it, more verses, history, etc.? It sounds as if it stemmed from the late minstrel era and got merged with "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" in or before the Carmina Princetonia version quoted above.

The other possibility, of course, is that it began as a piece of "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" and split off from there.

I had forgotten I'd heard the song in childhood until I ran across it. I remember it sung by performers at the only minstrel show I ever saw, held by the local Lion's Club (or some such organization) in (I think) Sellersville, Bucks County, PA, in the mid-1940s. When I found it again it was like a lost echo.

LEVEE SONG
^^
From the 1948 edition of Dick and Beth Best's IOCA Song Fest, p 78.
The Bests (or, perhaps, the original compilers, Will Brown and Gerry Richmond in (apparently) the late 1930s, give no source for the song and no other information.

Oh, I was born in Mobile town, a-workin' on the levee,
All day I roll de cotton down, a-workin' on the levee.

I used to have a dawg named Bill, a-workin' on the levee
He ran away, but I'm here still, a-workin' etc.

Dat li'l ol' dawg set up an' beg ...
Till I done give him a chicken leg ...

I always sing de Levee song ...
It makes de day not half so long ...

I once did know a girl named Grace ...
She brung me to dis sad disgrace ...

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 08:57 AM

Yet another possibility:

Could the four verses of "Levee Song" be the original stanzas to which "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" was the chorus?

That would make sense, as "Railroad" is just a little too brief to make up a good three-minute song.

Norm Cohen seems to imply this. In Long Steel Rail, 537-8, he writes: "In his compendium of American popular songs, Theodore Raph gives 1881 as the year 'I've Been Working on the Railroad' achieved widespread popularity, having been modified from an older song by black railroad workers. He cites 1900 as the date of first publication of 'Levee Song,' of which 'I've Been Working on the Railroad' was originally the second part."

But he then says there's no published evidence of "Railroad" prior to Carmina Princetonia in 1894. Cohen adds: "Of its assumed earlier existence in oral tradition among black laborers we know nothing."

All of which leaves "Levee Song" in limbo.

Bob

Subject: Lyr. Add: Tapioca
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 07:43 PM

At the time this first came up, I checked several of the college Carmina, and found nothing except in the 1894 (8th ed. Supplementary) where the "Levee Song" was first printed.
There are several minstrel songs that mention levees but none is suggestive of the Levee Song or Working on the railroad.
The song as printed in Carmina princetonia consisted of two verses and the chorus "I been wukkin' on de railroad Ter pass de time away. Doan' yuh hyah...."

The closest I have found is the 1861 minstrel song "Tapioca" by Edward Warden.

Lyr. Add: TAPIOCA
^^ Words and music by Edward Warden, 1861.

1
When I used to work upon the levee,
Many happy darkies there you see:
Cotton coming in so very heavy:
Oh! jolly! there was lots of work for me:
Black man hauling in the cargo:
Sum am very hot upon the head;
When he done, he dance a jolly jargo:
Rum tum!on the banjo, and then to bed!
Chorus:
To my oakum, to my chokum,
Oh! Pompey, can't you pick a peck of oakum?
Ah! Ah! ah! golly! ain't the levee-nigger free!
Solo:
Working on the cotton boat, ten shilling a day.
Johnny, can't you pick upon the banjo:
Chorus:
Oh, me! oh, my! ah mamma, mamma, mamma, don't you hear the baby cry?
2
When I used to work off in the river,
Sat in wood and water all the day:
Chilly wind he come, and make me shiver:
O glad this child he was to get away!
White man he gave me silver dollar,
Ev'ry day I work upon the dock;
Then I get some whiskey, and I holler:
Blom'e, blom'e, Caterrego rock!
Chorus, &c.
3
This child is fond of frigh'd 'tatoe,
Cat-fish, and coffee: oh! it's nice;
It make him feel just like an alligator,
When him just about to catch a mice.
When the bell he rings, I go to dinner;
Den I goes and see my Dinah dear;
I'll marry her, as sure as I'm a sinner,
And love her all the days that's in the year.
Chorus, &c.
Taken from a song sheet put out by H. De Marsan, NY. In American Memory; The sheet music by Oliver Ditson also at this web site. The De Marsan sheet also mentions that the music was published by G. D. Russell & Co., Boston.

Minstrel songs of this type often were reworked for different audiences, or at the whim of the performers.

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 13 Jul 08 - 08:04 PM

The "Grace / disgrace" couplet seems to come from an earlier English sea song called "Aboard the Man-o'-War":

I had a wife and her name was Grace--
My curse upon her ugly face.
'Twas she that brought me to this digrace,
Aboard the man-o'-war, O.

(More or less.)

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Susan of DT
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 08:34 AM

Isn't there another working on the levee song, unrelated to these, probably Dillon Bustin? I only remember bits of it:

I've been working on the levee
... on the levee below

... steamboat when she landed
... landed on the levee below

...miles and miles around

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Susan of DT
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 01:10 PM

Or were they just "Sitting on the banks of the levee" - in which case I apologize for sticking it in this thread.

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Jul 08 - 05:00 PM

Susan-

You are thinking of the Dillon Bustin song, the one the Johnson Girls do so well.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 02:39 AM

The levee song the Johnson Girls sing was learned from Jeff Warner and Jeff Davis. It was collected by Herbert Halpert in 1`939 from Josephine Douglas in the Women's Section of the notorious Parchman Prison Farm in Mississippi. You can hear the original at the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture, and you might even find it on American Memory.
    Bob -- the tune is clearly related to "Working on the Railroad." The Double Decker String Band also does this "Sittin' By the River on the Levee" song, with some minor variations, although I understand they also learned it from Halpert's Parchman recording,
    Sandy

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Susan of DT
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 05:49 AM

Thanx. Yes, I realized a few hours later that I heard it from Jeff Warner and it was sitting not working on the levee.

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 07:39 AM

The Parchman Farm levee song does have a melodic relationship to I've Been Workin' on the Railroad," all right -- though I would think it was recorded late enough in time that it could have been influenced by the commercial version.

Doesn't seem related in words or tune, though, to "The Levee Song" / "Workin' On the Levee". (The treatment of the levee is very different, with no real related phrasing.) I'm guessing that is a different song, not composed as an intro to "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and that before Carmina Princetonia merged the two, they were distinct.

Which means a prior original, but where can it be? For both songs we're stuck with that 1894 publication, which can hardly be an original.

I'd think if "I've Been Working on the Railroad" existed before 1894 the minstrels would have snapped up -- the Princeton boys are unlikely to have written it. (It's really a concoction of two or more songs -- I'm betting the Dinah part was once also separate.) But no sign of it so far as I know. Amazing that a song that's become such a cliche has such a slipshod, mostly uninvestigated history. Even Gus Meade in his Country Music Sources has nothing else on it.

Equally with "Workin' on the Levee." It's a grand tune, very distinctive -- when I read the score in the IOCA Song Fest I immediately recalled hearing it as a child in that local minstrel show. But where those minstrels in Pennsylvania got it is a mystery.    My guess is that they were unlikely to have a traditional version, so maybe they found it in one of those "How to Put On a Minstrel Show for Fun and Profit" manuals.

It's also a mystery where the Bests (or their predecessors in the IOCA) got the song. (Maybe they heard a local minstrel show too?)

"Workin' On the Levee" is good enough and memorable enough so that it ought to have been known and circulated. I'm still searching the web's numerous popular song archives and sources for African-American and minstrel songs, but so far have come up with nothing. Finding it was one of those stunning moments for me: a song that I knew as a child, then forgot, and only now recall again.

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 08:19 PM

Hmmm? Now I'm wondering what Dillon Bustin song I might have been thinking of. Back to the archives! At least I was correct about the Johnson Girls singing it.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 08:25 PM

Must have been either "Rolling to Cairo Town" or "Way Down in Shawneetown," either of which would have made the top ten among the riverboat roustabouts in the 19th century if Dillon Buston had access to a time machine (evidently the one he has only goes forward).

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Jul 08 - 09:29 PM

"Working on the Levee," Dunn, on Arhoolie 448, "Prison Worksongs" (Louisiana State Penitentiary).
Clips don't sound like anything related to Levee Song.

There is a website that says 'working on the railroad' "was first popular with workers on the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas rail line, built along the Mississippi in 1883/1884." http://perfessorbill.com/pbmidi9.shtml
Is this a made up story?
He also says 'Dinah' has been traced to a separate song from the 1850s, but again, where is the documentation that the Dinah's are related?

The same site, but also others, point to an Irish melody used for the song, but I have never found verification.

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' On the Levee
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 16 Jul 08 - 03:05 PM

'steamboat when she landed
... landed on the levee below'

What was the pilot smoking? A levee is a strong wall of earth or other material, well above the usual course of the water. It's to keep flood waters away from buildings, etc, on the floodplain.

In my neighborhood, you would have to run the boat over hundreds of feet of land to get it to a levee.

Subject: RE: Origins/Lyr Add: Workin' on the Levee
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 05:47 AM

Just a note to say that my further research has produced no more information, not even on what source was used for the IOCA Song Fest version of "Workin' On the Levee."

I keep thinking a search among those old minstrel manuals might produce something. Anyone have access to such a collection?

My focus is on "Workin' on the Levee," but -- since the two songs are associated as early as 1894 -- I'm also curious about the occasional assertions of 1880s popularity for "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad." No evidence seems forthcoming. Does anyone know whether those claims can be documented, and if so, where to look for them?

And, of course, there are mentions of some sort of origin for "Workin' on the Levee" among African American work songs. But there too, I've seen no evidence, and it has to remain guesswork -- unless someone can come up with a source?

Thanks, Bob

Subject: Lyr Add: THE LEVEE SONG
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 12:37 AM

From Song Book of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, 1909:

THE LEVEE SONG.

1. I once did know a girl named Grace —
While wukkin' on de levee,
She done brung me to dis sad disgrace
While wukkin' on de levee.

CHORUS. I been wukkin' on de railroad all de livelong day;
I been wukkin' on de railroad ter pass the time away.
Doan' yuh hyah de whistle blo win'? Rise up, so uhly in de mawn;
Doan' yuh hyah de cap'n shoutin', "Dinah, blow yo' hawn"?

2. Sing a song o' the city, roll dat cotton bale;
Niggah ain' half so happy as when he's out o' jail.
Norfolk foh its oystah-shells, Boston for its beans;
Cha'leston foh its rice an' cawn, but foh niggahs — New Awleans.