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Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Examples of "Dance Josey" & "Can't Dance Josey" Songs


Tobi Masei, November 23, 2009 

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Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision: March 27, 2022

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series of 19th songs that include the phrase "dance Josey" or "can't dance Josey".

Part I showcases one video of the song "Jim Along Joe" and provides information and lyrics for songs that include the line "jim along Joe".

Other songs mentioned in this post are "Hello Susan Brown", "Four in the Middle" (also known as "Two In The Middle"), and "Hold My Mule ("Jim Along Josie"). The song "Raging Canal" is also briefly mentioned in this post.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/08/chicken-in-fence-post-information-lyrics.html for Part II of this series. Part II focuses on the play party song "Chicken On The Fencepost" which also includes the words "can't dance Josey".

The content of this post is provided for folkloric, recreational, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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INFORMATION ABOUT "JIM ALONG JOSIE"
From http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/R575.html
DESCRIPTION: Originally a blackface minstrel piece, now often reduced to odd lyrics held together by the refrain, "Hey jim-along, jim-along Josie; Hey jim-along, jim along Jo." Sample verse: "Any pretty girl that wants a beau, Just fall in the arms of Jim Along Joe"
AUTHOR: Edward Harper? (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1840 (sheet music, according to Dichter/Shapiro, p. 52)
KEYWORDS: nonsense lyric playparty campsong

[...]

REFERENCES (12 citations):
Randolph 575, "Jim Along Josie" (1 text plus a fragment)

Owens-Texas Folk Songs-1ed, pp. 266-267, "Old Jay Bird" (1 text, 1 tune)

Owens-Texas Folk Songs-2ed, pp. 145-146, "Old Jay Bird" (1 text, 1 tune)

Warner-Traditional American Folk Songs From Anne And Frank Warner Coll 180, "Git Along Josie" (1 text, 1 tune)

Scarborough-On TheTrail Of Negro Folk Songs, p. 105, "Jam A-long, Josey" (1 text, 1 tune); also probably p. 106 (no title), (1 text, using this chorus in some instances; the verses include the terrapin and the toad, "My ole missus promise me When she die she set me free," "You get there before I do....")

Spurgeon-Waltz The Hall-American Play Party, p. 117, "Jim Along Jo" (1 text, 1 tune)

Spaeth-Weep Some More My Lady, pp. 103-104, "Jim Along Josey" (1 text, 1 tune).

[...]

NOTES 
Spaeth suggests that this is a minstrel tune, and he's probably right. He suggests that it was written by Edward Harper, who presented it in his 1838 play "The Free Ni&&er* of New York." Jon W. Finson, 
The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song, Oxford University Press, 1994 also credits it to Harper, but dates it to 1840.

But it has entered oral tradition -- though perhaps in a filed-down form; Spaeth's text has a four-line verse while the traditional forms often use two-line stanzas. The choruses are the same."...
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this quote. 

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INFORMATION ABOUT HOW TO "DANCE JOSEY"
Excerpt #1
From https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=52464; Guest Ritchie, 15 Oct.2002
"It's not clear if this was in the African- American tradition before 1838, which is the date I have for "Jim Along Josie," or the song became part of the tradition after becoming popular.

From Slave Dance Songs (on-line):
"Jim-Along-Josey" appears have been a popular dance song among enslaved African American in the late 19th century. Adults performed this partner dance almost the same way as square dancing is performed. A man who didn't dance called out the moves that the people had to do. A fiddle (violin) and other instruments would play the music for the dancing. The dancing would go on for a long time because the caller would remember as many verses as he could and also would make up (improvise) new verses to chant. "Jim" is a still common nickname for the male name "James". "Josey" was a common man's or woman's nickname (from "Joseph" or "Josephine"). "Josey" was also the name of an article of under clothing. "Josey" was also used as a name of this dance step. "The phrase "all the go" is like the current slang phrase "all that". They are both used to refer to something that is considered the best, or the most favorite, or something that is the done in the latest, most popular style. The sentence "the bullfrog died with the whooping cough" appears in a number of African American slavery and immediate post-slavery folk songs. The "whooping cough" is probably a reference to a disease called tuberculosis. "Jim Along Josie" is found in quite a few American folk songs books. Unfortunately, these books rarely mention the song's African American origin."

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Excerpt #2
Information about one way that "Josey" was danced is also found in this excerpt from Round the Levee by Stith Thompson; 1916 (page 12). This isn't necessarily how people originally danced to "Josie" songs.
"An elaboration of this form is found in several games which, while varying in figures, are related by having plans for changing partners. In “Josey”, the leading couple take the first couple to the right into the middle of the ring, and the four dance or march through the entire song. The first couple retire, and others take their place as the game continues.

Git your partner if you want’er dance Josey
Git your partner if you want’er dance Josey
Git your partner if you want’er dance Josey
Oh law, Susan Brown (or “Susie Gal” or “Miss Susan Brown”) (Partners swing left and right)

Hold my mule while I dance Josey etc. (Right and left circle)

Number nine can’t dance Josey etc (Swing right and left)
Wouldn't give a nickle if I couldn't dance Josey, etc.

Fiddler's drunk, and he can't dance Josey, etc.

Back step a little if you can't dance Josey, etc.

Git out of the ring if you can’t dance Josey etc

Usually sung for the last couple in the ring.
-snip-
"Oh law" means "Oh Lord".

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"HELLO SUSAN BROWN", "FOUR IN THE MIDDLE", AND "RAGING CANAL"
Here are three comments from http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=29975 about certain songs that include the "can't dance Josey" lyrics:

"Subject: RE: Origin: Four in the Middle
From:Richie
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 10:29 AM

Hi,

It seems clear that "Raging Canoe" is a mishearing of "Raging Canal."

The 1844 minstrel comic song "Raging Canal" was very popular in the 1800s. This song is clearly a different song and that the title has appeared as a lyric in the "Four in the Middle" songs."
-snip-
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: railroad steamroad river and canal
From:folk1234
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 09:19 AM

Your right Stewie. It was done by the CMT, before Chad left in the mid-60s. As with many songs they did, they modified the lyrics and tune to fit their truly unique vocal style. They made it much better.
-snip-
Subject: Lyr Add: HELLO SUSAN BROWN (f/Chad Mitchell Trio)
From:Stewie
Date: 28 Jan 01 - 02:59 AM

Thanks folk1234. I have found it. It's on a 1962 live recording by the Chad Mitchell Trio - 'At the Bitter End' Kapp Records PK 6002. They recorded it under the title 'Hello Susan Brown' arranged and adapted by Milt Okun. The lyrics are similar to 'Ragin' Canal (Two in the Middle)' in the DT as pointed to by Dick.
Coffee grows on white oak tree etc
Two in the middle and I can't dance Josie
Two in the middle and I can't get around
Two in the middle and I can't dance Josie
Hello Susan Brown

Railroad, steamboat river and canal
I lost my true love on that ragin' canal
She's gone gone gone
And she's gone gone gone
She's gone for to stay on that ragin' canal
Four in the middle etc
Fiddle in the middle etc
Wheel around, turn around etc
Coffee grows on white oak tree etc
-snip-
"Wheel around" means "to spin around".
-snip-
Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4wxJG-98QA for a video of the Chad Mitchell Trio singing "Hello Susan Brown". That song begins at 6:16 of that video.

Also, click http://www.songlyrics.com/chad-mitchell-trio/hello-susan-brown-lyrics/ for lyrics to the Chad Mitchell Trio version of "Hello Susan Brown".

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HOLD MY MULE (JIM ALONG JOSEY)
From "On The Trail Of Negro Folk Songs" edited by Dorothy Scarborough, Publisher: Cambridge, [Mass.] : Harvard University Press, 1925 [pages 105-106]

Hold my mule while I dance Josey
Hold my mule while I dance Josey
Oh, Miss Susan Brown.

Wouldn't give a nickel if I couldn't dance Josey
Wouldn't give a nickel if I couldn't dance Josey
Oh, Miss Susan Brown

Had a glass of buttermilk and I danced Josey
Had a glass of buttermilk and I danced Josey
Oh, Miss Susan Brown
-snip-
This song and the other "Jim Along Josey" songs are given in the section for "dance songs and reels". The author wrote that "Hold My Mule" was "danced like the Virgina Reel".

Click http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=52464#1233225 for my comments about the different meanings of the word "josey".

Click http://www.cocojams.com/content/african-american-secular-slave-songs for another variant of "Jim Along Josie" that was collected by Dorothy Scarborough.

And click http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/R575.html for information about "Jim Along Josie".

WARNING: What is now known as the n word is fully spelled out on this page.

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Thanks to the unknown composers of these songs. Thanks also to the folklorists who collected these songs and all those who are quoted in this post.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

1 comment:

  1. I just happened upon this version of "Four In The Middle" that doesn't have the "can't dance Josey" lyrics:

    Subject: Lyr Add: FOUR IN THE MIDDLE
    From:Q
    Date: 26 May 04 - 12:34 AM

    ...Lomax collected a play party song in Kingsville, Texas, 1939 Southern States Recording Trip which suggests that the 'coffee' verse in "Pretty Little Pink" is a floater:

    Lyr. Add: FOUR IN THE MIDDLE
    Sung by Ruby Wilson, Kingsville, TX

    "Green coffee grows on white oak trees,
    The river flows with brandy ose
    Go choose the one to roam with you,
    As sweet as striped candy ose.

    Four in the middle and you can't get about
    Four in the middle and you can't get about
    Four in the middle
    Swing your partner around you.

    Six in the middle and time half out

    Eight in the middle and swing

    Ten in the middle and two goes out

    -American Memory, under "Four in the Middle." Audio.

    http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=34525
    -snip-
    "My Pretty Little Pink" is a late 19th century American song.

    ReplyDelete