Lyr Add: Mule Skinner Blues

Subject: Lyr Add: MULE SKINNER BLUES (from Roy Acuff)
From: Metchosin
Date: 04 Nov 99 - 04:06 PM

One of three recordings I have of this song. The words are attributed to Rodgers on this 78 RPM recording, but it seems possible that it could be from a much older work song. I've searched the DT and can't find it listed. You'd think I'd finally get it right but my brains just turned to mush.

MULE SKINNER BLUES (BLUE YODEL #8)
As recorded by Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys, 1940.

Good mornin', captain.
Good mornin', shine.
Do you need any skinners
Down on that new mud line?

CHORUS: Yodel lay he hoo, Hee hee hoo

Workin' on the railroad,
Dollar and a dime a day.
My little girl's in town each Saturday night
To draw my little pay. CHORUS

Goin' downtown, honey.
What you want me to bring you back?
A walkin' cane,
A brand-new Stetson hat. CHORUS

O little water boy,
Bring that water 'round.
If you don't like your job,
You can throw your bucket down. CHORUS

I like to work.
I'm rollin' all the time.
I can pop my 'nitials on a mule
Most any old time. CHORUS

Another variant was recorded in the early 1960's by the Fendermen

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: JedMarum
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 02:42 PM

what's the history behind this song? Where/when did it originate?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 03:05 PM

Yes, it is from Jimmie Rodgers, according to Norm Cohen's "Long Steel Rail," p. 453. You have the title as given there. No words. According to John Greenway, the song has its roots in a folksong ("Jimmie Rodgers, A Folksong Catalyst," Jour. American Folklore, v. 70, 1962- quoted in "Long Steel Rail"). About Rodger's blue yodels, Greenway wrote: "of this great mass of song there is scarcely a word that cannot be traced to songs and sung phrases of hoboes and Negro train workers."
I don't have Greenway's article, so I don't know what he connected "Mule Skinner Blues (B. Y. # 8)" with. If I find anything, I will post it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Mark Ross
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 03:39 PM

Bill Monroe stopped the show at the Grand Ole'Opry when he made his 1st appearance with his Bluegrass Boys, in 1939(I think). Woody Guthrie recorded it as a straight 12 bar blues, unlike the Rodgers and Monroe versions. Instead of repeating the 1st line, they sang the tag line and yodeled on the 3rd when they go to the IV chord. I believe I have also seen a version copyrighted by Cisco Houston.

MArk Ross

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: JedMarum
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 03:44 PM

Yeah - I suspect thi has been around for a long long time - in some form or other. I have been reading Grant's Memoirs and he talks a bit about the teamsters in the US Army - just prior to the Mexican American War. Apparently many of the soldiers were recent European immigrants, poor urban folk who really had no real Mule Skinner experience (in many cases) but lied about it anyway to get jobs they found appealing - and so were stuck breaking mules bought from Mexican and American business men - wild, unbroken mules - Grant spoke with some amusement at the tasks they faced (and apparently completed eventually).

The story made me realize that mule skinner songs, like this one and others I learned as a kid - would have been around in Grant's early soldiering days.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 03:56 PM

The Acuff version shown above is quite different from the Rodgers Yodel # 8. (Previously posted by Metchosin 09-Feb-00- hmmm, same man?? Perhaps I've found someone who is as forgetful as I am). Thread 14589: Mule Skinner Blues
That thread also has a version by Bill Monroe. That version properly credits Jimmie Rodgers and co-author George Vaughn. Probably the same song gave rise to both. Here is one of the Rodgers-Vaughn versions:

Lyr. Add: MULE SKINNER BLUES

Good mornin', foreman, good mornin', boss
Do you need another mule skinner
With a blacksnake whip to toss?

Refrain- Yodel lay ee ee, yodel ay ee ee ...

Lord, I been workin' hard
An' I feels so bad!
I've got a good woman
An' I want to keep her glad.

Refrain

I'm an' ol' mule skinner from down Kentucky way
I can make any mule listen

Or I won't accept no pay.

From website http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~pjkuijve/#BLUE YODEL NO.8(MULE SKINNER BLUES). Not sure of spacing but looks spaced out- this Dutch url hard to make out. A good site with most (all?) of Rodgers' tunes. If this doesn't work, try different spacings: Mule Skinner

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 04:01 PM

Hooray! the song lyrics are in alphabetical order with an index at the top. Lots of meat here!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 05:13 PM

Jed, Josiah Gregg, in his "Commerce of the Prairies," 1844, wrote about the trade on the Santa Fé Trail and on the trade from there into Mexico. The traders, Gregg being involved from 1831-1839, used Mexican muleteers and their wagons to freight the goods. Pack mules were also used by the Mexicans on the trade routes. On his last trading venture into New Mexico in 1839, he blazed a new trail, the muleteers traveling from Van Buren, Arkansas, to Santa Fé through the settlements in the Indian Territory and along the Canadian River into New Mexico, a route with more water along the way. He reached Santa Fé a month before his competitors. This became an accepted route on the Santa Fé Trail.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:42 PM

Alan Lomax in his "Land Where The Blues Began" writes of the Levy camps and similar gang labor situations where as the use of team drawn machinery came in the use of black labor proliferated because the blacks could handle mules. One of the things separating low land whites from low land blacks was that the whites used horses and the blacks used mules. Obviously this can be overdrawn. Highland whites and lowland blacks had both mules and independent song traditions. Hmmm? Could there be some correlation? Nahhh. Hmmm.

"I like to work, I'm rolling all the time, (2x)
I can pop my initials on a mule's behind."

from the Woody Guthrie version on Daddy's 78.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Apr 02 - 10:57 PM

The verse about the mule's behind also was used by Jimmie Rodgers. "I can carve my initials on a mule's behind." In Lomax, FSNA p. 292. Like other folk singers, he varied his take from time to time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Tweed
Date: 01 May 02 - 12:05 AM

Here's just the guy who could carve his initials in that mule's behind.

White Muleskinner from WallaWalla, (Library of Congress Collection)

Subject: Origin & Lyr. : Muleskinner Blues
From: Richie
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 09:51 PM

I am looking for early versions or the earliest version of Muleskinner Blues. I assume that Jimmy Rodgers has one of the first versions, then Bill Monroe had a hit with it in the 1940's. Did Rodgers write the song or get it from folk sources? Is it PD?

Thanks,

Richie

Subject: RE: Origin & Lyr. : Muleskinner Blues
From: Louie Roy
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 11:03 PM

Richie according to the info I have Jimmie Rodgers recorded this song first about 1928 and he called it Blue Yodel # 8 and I believe Bill Monroe changed the title to Mule Skinner Blues

Subject: RE: Origin & Lyr. : Muleskinner Blues
From: GUEST,Tom Dowling
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 11:55 PM

Gee, does that mean that the late 50's/early 60's version by the Fendermen, which crept onto the AM airwaves around Fort Dix, NJ (where we lived at the time) and probably elswhere, was not the original? Was that "Cha Cha Cha" at the end of their version in the Jimmy Rogers original? I think not!!

Tom D.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 12:04 AM

I combined threads to take advantage of the previous discussion. Hope you don't mind, Richie. There's an entry on this in the Traditional Ballad Index that should help a bit.
-Joe Offer-

---

Mule Skinner Blues

DESCRIPTION: "Good morning, Captain, Good morning, son... Do you need another mule skinner out on your new road line?" About the hard life on the road work gang, waiting for water, and dealing with a mule
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938
KEYWORDS: work loneliness animal floatingverses
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Lomax-FSNA 152, "Mule Skinner Blues" (1 text, 1 tune, with one stanza of "T for Texas" thrown in for fun)
Silber-FSWB, p. 129, "Mule Skinner Blues" (1 text)
RECORDINGS:
Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys, "Mule Skinner Blues" (Bluebird 8568, 1940)
Pete Seeger w. Jerry Silverman & Sonny Terry, "Muleskinner Blues" (on HootenannyTonight)
Notes: To the best of my knowledge, every known version of this goes back to Jimmie Rodgers ("Blue Yodel #8"). I doubt the song can truly be considered traditional. - RBW
To add to the fun, the Lomaxes tacked part of another Rodgers piece, "T for Texas," onto the end of this one. Given that neither song has much of a plot, it can be hard to separate the resulting hybrids. - PJS, RBW
File: LoF152

---

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Instructions

The Ballad Index Copyright 2002 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 01:00 AM

According to this discography, Woodie and Cisco did this song --maybe not before Jimmie's, not sure.

A

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Stewie
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 02:28 AM

Amos, Jimmie died in 1933, over 10 years before those recordings were made.

--Stewie.

Subject: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 05:02 AM

Here's what I found in Folk Songs of North America (Alan Lomax). Note that Lomax attributes the song to Jimmy Rodgers.
-Joe Offer-

---

MULE SKINNER BLUES - BLUE YODEL NO. 8
(Jimmy Rodgers)

'Good mornin', Captain.' 'Good mornin', son.'
An' it's 'Good mornin', Captain.' ' Good mornin', son.'
'Do you need another mule skinner out on your new road line?'

Well, I like to work, I'm rollin all the time,
An' I like to work, I'm rollin' all the time.
I can carve my initials on a mule's behind.

Well, it's ' Hey, little waterboy, bring your water 'round.'
An' it's 'Hey, little waterboy, bring your water 'round.
If you don't like your job, set that water-bucket down.'

It's T for Texas, T for Tennessee,
It's T for Texas, T for Tennessee,
It's T for Thelma, the gal who made a fool out of me.

Source: The Folk Songs of North America (Alan Lomax, 1960)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: BanjoRay
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 06:17 AM

The superb version by Ramblin' Jack Elliott from back in the 50s was one that helped change my whole way of thinking about music, when I heard it in the 60s. I presume he was doing his version of Woody's version, which I haven't yet heard.
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Richie
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 06:37 AM

Thanks for the help.

Since "Blue Yodel #8" or Muleskinner Blues was a hit for Rodgers you'd think someone might have asked him about the song. Is there an interview with Rodgers? It seems like something he adapted from folk sources, but from where?

Since 1928 is the date Rodgers recorded Blue Yodel, does this mean he holds the copyright or is Bill Monroe the holder since the title was changed? What is the first Copyright?

In Jerry Silverman's 110 American Folk Blues he has two versions of Muleskinner Blues without giving credit to authorship. This would lead me to assume they are PD, since he published them.

-Richie

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 05:18 PM

Lomax said Rodgers recorded Blue Yodel 1 through 9. Anybody have texts for the other eight songs?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Stewie
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 06:11 PM

Joe,

You can find them on this site:

Jimmie Rodgers lyrics

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Richie
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 08:37 AM

Peer International holds the copyrights to the Rodgers songs. I'm curious how Silverman published his versions of Muleskinner in 110 Folk Blues.

Joe- I have the texts to all the blue Yodels of which I believe there are 13 Blue Yodels. Here's some info:

It was a later 1927 record that really set off the Rodgers phenomenon - "Blue yodel" (or "T for Texas") was a blues with a yodel & an inspiration to many blues songs & singers from then on (including Tampa Red's "Bessemer blues"). The song became so popular, it earned sequels & invented a new style of music: the blue yodel, which eventually became country music.

"Blue yodel No. II" & "Blue yodel No. 3" followed & with the success of these, more sequels came along - "Blue yodel No. 4 (California blues)", "Blue yodel No. 5" (both covered by Gene Autry), "Blue yodel No. 6 (Blues like midnight)"(cover by Jerry Lee Lewis), "Blue yodel No. 7", "Blue yodel No. 8 (Muleskinner blues)" (covered by Bill Monroe), "Blue yodel No. 9", "Blue yodel #10", "Blue yodel #11", "Blue yodel #12" and "Jimmie Rodgers' last blue yodel".

Richie-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 05:13 PM

The Roy Acuff recording that Metchosin transcribed in the first message can be heard at The Record Lady's All-Time Country Favorites, Requests Page Nine.

I listened, and in the first verse I hear "Do you need any skinners down on that new mud line?"

Otherwise, it's a good transcription.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 09:42 PM

Good morning captain
Good morning shine.
eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Muleskinner Blues
From: GUEST,Joe Moran
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 08:28 AM

Ramblin' Jack Elliott performed "Muleskinner Blues" on a UK tv folk programme in the early 60s. I had an audio version of the show way back when - may still have it somewhere.