What's a Walking Boss?

Subject: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 09:44 AM

Clarence Ashley sings a wonderful song, "Walkin' Boss," on his Folkways recording with Doc Watson. Anybody know what exactly a walking boss is/was? I seem to recall the phrase in the name of a longshore union local (as in Amalgamated Freight Handlers, Stevedores and Walking Bosses Local Union No. 2346), but that doesn't give me much clue.

While I'm at it, does anyone know what "ball the jack" means? (it's another phrase from the song that occurs in other folk songs, too.)

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: bill\sables
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 10:21 AM

I don't know exactly but I guess balling the jack could come from the game of bowls known these days as crown green bowling. At the start of a game the bowler bowls a white ball down the green to form a marker for the main bowls to target. In the UK this white ball is called the "Jack" so the bowler would be bowling the jack.It probably means something completly different in the US Cheers Bill

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 10:28 AM

Here's a picture of a "Typical walking boss". But more serious, I always thought that was the person doing the actual on the spot work control different from the boss person sitting on a desk nearly never meeting an actual worker.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: MMario
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 10:47 AM

Somewhere in my memory is the term "waulkin boss" who was some type of foreman or leader in a textile factory... or maybe I'm just blowing smoke....

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Roger the skiffler
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 11:22 AM

"Walking the job" was a management vogue a couple of years ago, meaning seeing what the workers were doing, not hiding in an office, so some sort of hands-on supervisor would be my (probably ill-informed) guess.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Pete peterson
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 11:47 AM

"walking boss" as I understand it was the boss of the RR crew that was either laying or repairing track. He had to walk up and down the length of the section of track being repaired and check that it was being done correctly. If you were one of the track workers, the job probably seemed pretty soft -- if you were the walking boss, it probably seemed pretty rough to you. (a phrase from Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers pops into mind "but how could the Lieutenant have anything to worry about? after all, the sergeants were under him, not over him! ((spoken by a private)) ) but as Utah Phillips said -- "Dump the bosses off your back"

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: kendall
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 03:07 PM

I always thought that ball the jack was a dance? like DIDO which later came to mean a caper or to get into a scrape.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: paddymac
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 05:40 PM

I can remember my grandfather using the phrase. He was a railroad man who lost his arm in a work-related accident. I was too young to really understand the phrase, but suspect Pete P. has the right spin.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 06:34 PM

Balling the jack was a popular dance. Like many dance names it is occasionally usurped as metaphor for sexual intercourse.

As I type this, I wonder if the name "Balling the Jack" was a usurptation of other slang for sexual intercourse. Any word sleuths who know?

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Oct 99 - 10:33 PM

In a few prison worksongs it seems the the Walking Boss is the High Rider or High Sheriff, the guard that's sits on his horse above all the others guards & convits alike. He's the on that has the shotgun on his lap & is off away from the main groupwhere he has a good view of the whole scene.

"When I went to Leland, Lordy, well, I thought I was lost baby (3x)
Went around the corner, honey, met my Walking Boss"

From Early In The Morning"

The references & discriptions Lomax gives in his 'The Land Where The Blues Began' about ballin the jack is a very vivid scene of an extremely erotic slow gyrating dance.
Barry

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Hutzul
Date: 16 Oct 99 - 01:57 AM

First you put your two knees close up tight Then you swing 'em to the left and you swing 'em to the right Something Something Something kind of nice and light And then you twist around and twist around with all of your might Spread your lovin' arms way out in space Do the Eagle Rock with style and grace Something something something Then you bring it back That's what I call "balling the Jack"

Anybody know the missing "somethings"?

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 12:03 AM

Thanks for the info on what a Walking Boss is. On the "ball the jack" question, it's funny -- the context of the phrase in the song "Walking Boss" seems to suggest a work activity rather than a recreational one--maybe "ball the jack" is a sexual act so named because it in some way resembles something railroad workers did?

Here's the context in "Walking Boss" (with repetition omitted)

I asked that boss For a job He said "Son, what can you do?"

I can ball a jack I can line a track I can pick and shovel, too.

Any further suggestions for sources?

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 12:49 PM

According to the book formerly known as the New Lost City Ramblers Songbook, currently the Old-Time Stringband Songbook (Mike Seeger, John Cohen, Hally Wood; Oak Publications):

"The 'walking boss' was a type of foreman who gave no orders to the workers, but only to their immediate supervisors. When asked what would happen if they were singing this when the walking boss came near, [Clarence] Ashley said they'd go right on singing, and the boss would pretend he didn't hear."

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 12:59 PM

And while we're at it, now that we're in the age of Google (which we weren't when the question was posed here), according to slangcity.com, re: "ball a jack" or "balling the jack" --

"... "balling the jack" has several meanings. None of them are used much these days, but maybe the expression may become more popular because of the recent novel, Balling the Jack, by Frank Baldwin. It's being made into a movie, starring Ben Affleck as a gambler, and the expression means "risking everything on one attempt" - in this case, he bets $40,000 on a dart game.

However, that's not the original meaning of the word. It was the name of a popular dance in 1913, which goes like this:

       [lyrics as above]

Later, the meaning was expanded from just "dancing" to "having a great time". Around the same time the song came out, the expression was used by railroad workers to mean "going at full speed." It's not clear whether the dance or railroad reference came first. And (if that's not enough) it's also been used to describe operating a jackhammer.

So it wasn't anything gross (disgusting), though you can find later uses of the expression where it has a sexual meaning, similar to "balling" (having sex). For example, in the 1940s, blues artist Big Bill Broonzy sang:

       My baby's coming home.
       I hope that she won't fail because I feel so good, I feel so good.
       You know I feel so good, feel like balling the jack.

Well, he could be talking about dancing... but maybe not."

~ B in T

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:23 PM

"Tom Hauer writes:
I've seen the expression "ballin' the jack" in several folk songs and one novel. It seems to mean "expeditiously" or "with great haste," though one phrase led me to believe it meant "to dance aggressively." Are any of these definitions accurate?
They are all accurate, if you add "to do something" to your adverbial definitions.

The phrase ball the jack was popularized in 1913 by a ragtime song by Jim Burris and Chris Smith called "Ballin' the Jack." This well-known song introduced a dance step of the same name that was the subject of the song, so one sense of ball the jack was 'to perform (the dance step introduced in the song)'.

The usual sense of the expression, though, is 'to go fast; make haste', and this is often used in reference to railroad trains. This train-related use seems not to be the origin, however; jack 'a railroad locomotive' isn't found outside this phrase until later. (The phrase is verbal, which is why I said that it doesn't mean 'with great haste', but rather 'to do something with great haste'.) A slightly different sense is 'to work hard and efficiently'.

The ragtime song was published in 1913, and the phrase is not attested earlier. It is unknown whether the song actually coined the phrase or merely popularized an already existing one. Both the 'go fast' and the 'work hard' senses were common by the end of the 1910s."

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:26 PM

'"Walking Boss & Foreman's Pay Guarantee Plan, SAR 2004

SUMMARY ANNUAL REPORT

FOR PACIFIC MARITIME ASSOCIATION WALKING BOSS & FOREMAN'S PAY

GUARANTEE PLAN

This is a summary of the annual report for the Pacific Maritime Association Walking Boss & Foreman's Pay Guarantee Plan, EIN 94-2377613, Plan No. 504, for the period July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004. The annual report has been filed with the Internal Revenue Service, as required under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).'

from

www.pmanet.org/docs/index.cfm/ id_subcat/95/id_content/2142592441

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:34 PM

'"SKOOKUM RYAN THE WALKING BOSS (FRAGMENT) (JOE HILL) (c. 1912)

Louis Moreau, a Wobbly "camp delegate" who helped organize the construction workers [of the Canadian Northern Railroad Company in British Columbia, 1912]... remembers that Joe Hill... appeared in the strikers' camp in Yale, British Columbia.... Moreau remembers seeing Joe Hill often in the office of the Yale strike secretary writing songs. "Where The River Fraser Flows" was written during the first few days Hill was in the camp....

Another song, "Skookum Ryan, the Walking Boss," was very popular and consisted of five or six stanzas of which Moreau remembers one....

Gibbs M. Smith, Labor Martyr Joe Hill, New York, NY, 1969, pp. 24-25.


Lyrics (one stanza) as remembered by Moreau, reprinted ibid.


Skookum Ryan the Walking Boss
Came tearing down the line,
Says he, "You dirty loafers take your coats off
Or go and get your time."'

from

www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/skookum.html

(THERE ar popups on that link. The cogent stuff is posted above.)

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:45 PM

And the lyric of Walking Boss has been folk processed, one way or another: the New Lost City Ramblers have the text transcribed as "pull a jack" and Jeff Davis sounds like he sings it as "haul a jack". Anybody have the Clarence Ashley on hand to give a listen?

The Google search on "ball a jack" mostly came up with Johnny Cash's "Legend of John Henry's Hammer".

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:53 PM

bill/sables mention above that the expression appears in the game of bowls (Hope I said that properly). It also appears in Boccia.

The editors of The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary have this to say:



Could you please tell me what it means to "ball the jack''? I've heard it used in a couple of songs. Does it have anything to do with truck driving? Where did the phrase originate?

— D.F., Lakeview, Ore.

Dear D.F.:

We are certain that many a trucker does "ball the jack'' down the highway, for the phrase means simply "to go fast.'' Although one source claims it derives from an identical logging expression, its probable origin is from railroad terminology, in which the expression means "to gain speed.''

"Ball'' is probably a shortened version of "highball,'' which is the railroad term for a signal to the engineer that he may proceed at full speed, and is also used for a fast train. The term "highball'' developed from an early railroad practice in which the go-ahead signal given to an engineer was the raising of a metal ball to the top of a pole. The verb "highball,'' meaning "to go at full speed,'' also developed from this practice.

"Jack'' is railroad slang for "locomotive.'' The origin of this term is uncertain, but it may be related to other kinds of machinery that are called "jacks'' or that have names in which another word is combined with "jack,'' such as "jackshaft.'' To a railroader, then, "ball the jack'' means "to bring a locomotive to full speed.''

The expression also caught on outside of railroading circles, and is used generically to mean "to move fast'' or "to hurry.'' It is certainly used in connection with truckers, but it can also describe a person moving at high speed. For example, we have in our file this description of the sluggishness of a Missouri farm worker: "As one farmer unfortunate enough to depend on Ed's exertions during the haying season summed it up, `Ol' Ed ain't much for ballin' the jack, but he wouldn't be a bad worker, only he gets kinda fidgety in the middle of the week lookin' for Sunday to sneak up on him in both directions.'''

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 02:54 PM

'Ball(ing) the jack' has not yet been found in print before the 1913 ragtime song. Lighter, 1994, "Dictionary of American Slang," vol. 1.

Its railroad origin, as discussed in Merriam Webster's and quoted by Peace, seems likely, but is not proven.

W. C. Handy, in 1914 (see "Blues Treasury," 74): "Said a black headed gal make a freight train jump the track,/ but a long tall gal makes a preacher ball the jack."
1918- Niles, "Singing Soldiers": I come to France to make de kaiser ball de jack."

With the meaning 'to leave in a hurry':
1919- N. I. White, "American Negro Folk Songs," p. 276,

The nigger is happy,
His load off his back.
But when the policeman comes snoopin',
He's gotta ball the jack.
(Negroes working in a brick yard, King's Mountain, North Carolina)

Quotes from Lighter; note on fragment of a Negro laborers song from White.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 03:05 PM

The track jack: there were two sizes of jacks. One was about 2 feet high with a lift of about 12 to 14 inches. The other, a smaller jack, was about 10 inches high with a lift of six to eight inches. The tall jacks were usually used when the track was pulled out of surface to be reballasted or retied. The smaller jack could also be used for this work but the small lift restricted its use. The stem on the small jack had a groove cut on the top of the stem.

Using these jacks to line track was thus. Two jacks were used. Digging an angled hole on the inside of the track, you placed the jack stem with the groove against the ball of the rail. You had already dug out the ballast from the end of the ties. The jacks were placed about a half a rail length apart. With one man lining, the other two operated the jacks, pushing the track until instructed to stop.


from

madisonrails.railfan.net/lewman10.html

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Kaleea
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 03:23 PM

My Grandad, who lived in Eastern Oklahoma, was a railroadman on the Frisco Line many decades ago. He sometimes used the phrase, "ballin the jack," meaning that the train wouldmake a fast run, or in other words, go somewhere & return quickly.


             Ballin the Jack

First you put your two knees close up tight
Then you sway them to the left, then you sway them to the right
Step around the floor kind of nice and light
Then you twist around and twist around with all your might,
Stretch your loving arms straight out into space,
Then you do the Eagle Rock with style and grace.
Swing your foot way 'round then bring it back.
Now that's what I call Ballin' the Jack.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: pdq
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 07:53 PM

The phrase "ballin'n the jack" has also been used to mean "operating a jackhammer", ie "working very hard". Kinda train-related also.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: HiHo_Silver
Date: 01 May 06 - 09:06 AM

Many old phrases meant different activities in different areas. Balling the jack was a type of dance in my area. Walking Boss was a foreman in the lumber woods or on the railroad who walkeed around and visited the various working crews to determine whether or not the job was being performed properly.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 01 May 06 - 01:54 PM

"Daddy was an engineer
Brother drives a hack,
Sister takes in washin',
And the baby balls the jack.
And it looks like I'm never gonna cease my wanderin'."


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 01 May 06 - 05:48 PM

I heard it from Clarence Ashley in 1962 as "pull a jack" -- and that's how I sang it pretty much for years.

That was at the second University Of Chicago Folk Festival. I wrote it down then--and still have it. But I could've heard it wrong.

Art

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: paddymac
Date: 01 May 06 - 08:17 PM

I still vote for the railroad origin of "walking boss," but am more inclined to think of it as a demanding tool rather that a person, maybe something like a "gandy dancer." Desert Dancer's "explanation" of "ballin' the jack" makes the sexual innuedno easily understood.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 01 May 06 - 09:04 PM

Art, the NLCR notes from their conversation with Clarence Ashley sort of imply that he had personal experience with walking bosses on a rail line. Do you know anything about that?

~ Becky

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 01 May 06 - 09:16 PM

All the above is great and lots of fun .. I had to go close a kiln and I happened to have the smithsonian two cd set in the truck ..
As far as the recorded vertion goes Art wins the prize :


He said son what can you do ?

I can pull a jack,
Line a track . Line a track
I can pick and shouvel too

As many who know me here know Clarence is my favorite clawhammer banjo player.. I am more astounded by his choice of hammer-ons and pull-offs these 38 years after first hearing them . Also for the placement of his right hand it is wonderful how much "cluck" he gets out of his voicing the strings .. This is one of my favorites of Clarence's work . THanks for the thread .. All the best , Guy

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 02 May 06 - 09:58 PM

Becky and Guy,

At those first nine or ten years of the University Of Chicago Folk Festival (starting with 1961) the kids and faculty advisers were either smart enough or lucky enough to hire the New Lost City Ramblers every year. (Archie Green too.) Their collective expertise was the glue that held it all together. By that I mean that Mike Seeger, John Cohen, Tom Paley and Tracy Schwarz pretty much ran the mesmerizing workshops at Ida Noyes Hall on that campus. They KNEW what questions to ask the great quite elderly and expert informants who were, possibly, in the last years of their lives. In '61 I was twenty years old and in love with folk music! Hearing Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson and Clint Howard and Gaither Carlton in what I believe was Doc's first performance in the North, all I can say is that to hear these people while they were still at the nadir of their musical powers was absolutely sublime. --------- And then the next year there at the festival were Roscoe Holcomb, the Stanley Brothers, Elizabeth Cottton, Jack Elliott just back from England, Allan Mills & Johnny Carignan, Larry Older, Ike Everly, Ralph Rinzler, Kilby Snow, Cousin Emmy, Arvella Gray, Big Joe Williams---and so many others. Every year I was like a sponge soaking it all up.   

Becky, you are correct about Clarence Ashley telling Mike Seeger that he had personal experience with the Walkin Boss being sung. On page 112 of The New Lost City Ramblers Song Book (Oak Publications, New York 1964) in the intro to the song it says the following: "Clarence "Tom" Ashley ...recalls hearing it sung by the railroad working crews. The 'walking boss' was a kind of foreman who gave no orders to the workers, but only to their immediate supervisors." ---- (Someone noted this in a previous post to this thread.)

It also mentions that Clarence recalled a part of another verse that was in this song:

I looked at the sun,
And it looked high,
I looked at the Boss,
And...

The boys figured that might help place the song in the "Roll On John"--"Roll On Buddy"--"Nine Pound Hammer" family of songs.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 02 May 06 - 10:15 PM

Guy,

That certain "sound" that Clarence got frailing his banjo was a truly other-worldly -- kind of a hollow overtone. I thought maybe it was based on his rapping right on the exact harmonic G-spot of the string. It sure was apparent and audible through the Mandel Hall P.A. system back in '61 ---- and that transferred beautifully onto the tapes radio station WFMT made of those festival's concerts. I think Folkways used some of those tapes for the LPs they made of Clarence, Doc and friends. ---- Either way, I can hear it in my mind's ear like it's happening right now.

Art

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 May 06 - 10:16 PM

"(Someone noted this in a previous post to this thread.)"

Art, that would be me, when I renewed this discussion, posting what information I could find when I worked on the song this past weekend.

So, I'm glad at least some people read some of what's been posted before they chime in. :-)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 May 06 - 10:35 PM

Is there any other record of this song in tradition, other than from Clarence Ashley? The Ballad Index has no other entries than the New Lost City Ramblers' book, FWIW. I would think he's the source for all revival renditions, in which case, his word is pretty much gold, as far as meanings.

~ B in T

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 02 May 06 - 10:41 PM

"...to hear these people while they were still at the nadir of their musical powers..."

Art, I think you meant zenith, not nadir.

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 May 06 - 10:57 PM

And supporting evidence is clear for "walking boss" as an actual labor boss who walks or rides around the work area (a foreman, rather than a gang boss): if you google the term, it shows up pretty frequently in formal contexts for dockworkers/longshoremen nowadays, and for lumbermen in the past.

There are lots of hits for "ball a jack" in the railway context, mostly for "high rate of speed", at least once for something related to jacking things up.

My personal opinion is that its not necessary to imagine anything much more colorful for the primary meanings in this song. Whether there was any double entendre involved is pretty hard to see given the fragment of text that remains.

~ B in T

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 03 May 06 - 03:35 PM

Cryptic references, where the spare images themselves conjure up any number of unique visions in your mind, in many songs where we know actually very little, make a Gestalt situation of fascinating proportions.

And, yes, I guess I should've said zenith... ;-) Nader is just the man who put George Bush over the top------while Zenith is just a television!!

Art

Subject: RE: What's a Walking Boss?
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 May 06 - 02:56 PM

Richard Widmark plays a quintessential railroad walking boss in "How The West Was Won".

yours,

Peter T.