Music City Roots, Feb. 13, 2010
Tennessee Mafia Jug Band performing "Uncle Eef"
live at Music City Roots on 1.20.2010
Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series about the song "Uncle Eph's Got The Coon".
This post showcases a sound file of "Uncle Eph's Got
The Coon" and presents selected comments from two Mudcat Folk Music Forum
discussion threads about this song.
Information about the vocal technique called "eephing" which is performed in the beginning of this showcased song file is given in the Addendum to this post.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/07/information-about-coon-songs-some.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post showcases another sound file of "Uncle Eph's Got The Coon" and presents some lyrics for versions of this song.
Thanks to all those who have collected this song. Thanks to Tennessee Mafia Jug Band for their music, thanks to all those who are quoted in this post, and thanks to the publisher of this song file on YouTube.
****
LYRICS AND OTHER ONLINE COMMENTS ABOUT "UNCLE EPH'S GOT THE COON"
From
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=48470&messages=20
[Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.]
1.
Subject: Background of Brother Ephus
From: Dave Swan
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 01:38 PM
"My partners and I are arranging Brother Ephus for performance. We hope the song(particularly the chorus) can be taken at face value as a racoon hunting song. However, it has been suggested (and we can't find a definitive source one way or the other) that the chorus concerns a runaway slave.
"Where you going, Moses?, None of your business, Come here Moses, I ain't a gonna do it" may indicate a call and response between the captor and slave.
Certainly we don't want to sing a song which we don't understand, especially when it concerns something as important as this. At his point we just don't know enough.
I'd be grateful for anyone's input, a reference, or a citation.
Thanks,
Dave"
**
2.
Subject: RE: Background of Brother Ephus
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 08:08 PM
"OK, but if he left "me" barking up the tree,
then "I" must be his dog. Ephus, the hunter, took the coon and left
the dog (Moses) barking up the empty tree.
Reminds me of a dog I once had who treed a cat ONCE and never again in her life passed that tree without looking for the cat. No, that doesn't mean a darn thing; just rather comical.
The 'preacher don't steal' verse is generic, as I'm sure you know, and wanders from song to song. In less happy times it would have been, 'a n-----* won't steal' and in the sixties sometimes became 'a hippie won't steal.'
As to not singing songs not understood, this is a laudable
standard, but if it were universally adopted, no one would be able to sing
"Horse with No Name." Ever."...
-snip-
*This is the way this word is written in that discussion
thread.
**
3.
Subject: RE: Background of Brother Ephus
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 09:53 PM
"See thread 9197, with which this one ought to be combined: Uncle Ef's
The song ("Brother Ephus" in the DT, cobbled or put-together by Hedy West, is derived from several minstrel and Negro folk songs and spirituals. The first verse has been reported since 1909 (Mississippi), but parts are much older. Newman L. White, 1928, American Negro Folk Songs, p. cites fragments under the title:
BROTHER EBEN'S GOT A COON
Uncle Eph'm got the coon and gone on, gone on, gone on.
Uncle Eph'm got de coon and gone on,
And left me watching up de tree.
White says this verse was used as a refrain after a stanza that had antecedents in several old minstrel books.
This same song was reported by Scarborough, 1925, from Virginia (Brother Ephram).
BROTHER EBEN'S GOT A COON
Brother Eban's got a coon,
And gone on, gone on,
Brother Eban's got a coon,
And gone on, gone on.
Also reported by White, Durham, NC, 1919 from Ms.
White comments that "While hunting coon is almost
unknown in the Negro folk songs of today, it was a commonplace in the old
minstrel song books of the 1840s and 1850s," p. 223, 1965, reprinted by
facsimile from the edition of 1928.
As already pointed out, the verse about stealing watermelon
appears commonly:
Some folks say dat er preacher won't steal,
But I caught one in my cornfield.
He had er bushel, his wife had er peck,
De baby had a roastin' ear hung er round his neck.
Reported from Alabama, 1915-1918, "sung by cornfield Negroes." From White, (see above), p. 372.
An older one:
Some folks say dat n—gers* won't steal,
I kotch one in my cornfield.
I ax him 'bout de corn, he call me a liar,
I up wid a chunk and knock him in de fiar.
White says that the version possibly came from the tidewater region of VA or NC, where "chunk" means to throw. The verse above is from "Negro Singers' Own Book, 1846(?), p. 411, in 'Whar You Cum From', by J. B. Harper, the "Celebrated Delineator of Comic and Aethiopian characters." It is probable that this song is "responsible for many others, including numerous blues, beginning 'What Some Folks Say.'" Quoted from White, p. 270, reference given above.
The last three lines of another:
But I caught three in my cornfield.
I ran dem through a pine thicket,
Stove my head in a yellow jacket nest.
and:
I caught two in my tater fiel',
One had a shovel and the other had a hoe,
If that ain't stealin' I don't know.
(The first from NC, the second from AL).
"Where you goin', Moses," is related to:
Whar you goin', buzzard;
Whar you goin', crow?
Gwine down to de low groun
To git mah grubbin' hoe.
According to White, this could be a verse from the old Jim Crow song used by Thomas D. Rice in the 1830s (named for an old slave, Jim Crow, met by Rice in Louisiana).
There are a number of verses that the one about the slippers is related to:
What kind of clothes do the angels wear, Ugh! Ugh!
What kind of clothes do the abgels wear, Ugh! Ugh!
Oh, my --- etc., an "upstart crow" from the Negro spiritual,
"What Kind of Shoes Are You Going to Wear," see Negro Spirituals, or the Songs of the Jubilee Singers, No. 47, ed. T. F. Seward, pre-1900.
Similar verses in "Negro Folk Rhymes," Thomas W.
Talley, 1991, Univ. Tennessee Press."
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
4.
Subject: RE: Background of Brother Ephus
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 10:32 PM
"Lyrics really sound like an escaped
slave/"n--ger*" song to me.....but what do I know?"
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment.
**
5.
Subject: RE: Background of Brother Ephus
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 10:56 PM
Sorcha, I presume you refer to the first verse. It could be.
Some have insisted that the verse relates to a lynching. The experts, however, relate it to normal hunting for the coon, possum, or whatever. Only a little change in the lyrics (so-called folk process) can completely obscure the original intent. We can never identify the original.
The other problem is that, at this late date, attempting to separate Negro and minstrel songs from each other is impossible. Too much borrowing, back and forth.
The verse about stealing corn (or whatever) has been the
subject of jokes (as long as the buckshot doesn't get you) with farmers and
humorists world-wide."
-snip-
I added italics to this sentence to highlight it.
**
6.
Subject: RE: Background of Brother Ephus
From: Dave Swan
Date: 12 Jun 02 - 02:44 PM
"It isn't a question for me of there being one right way to do this song. As long as I'm unsure about the references of this song I'll be uncomfortable with singing it, and that will show. I can't arbitrarily give a song meaning if it means something else.
Other's mileage may vary, but I've got to know what I'm talking (singing) about before I can make a decision about whether I want to take the song any farther, and make a decision about performance.
I don't fear doing songs which require a historical perspective, or some audience education. Nor do I fear saying this one's not right for me/this audience/this event. But, for me, I'm not giving the audience its money's worth, nor pleasing myself if, on some level, I'm saying "I'm not really sure what this song is about, but I'm going to sing it anyway." "
**
7.
Subject: RE: Background of Brother Ephus
From: Dave Swan
Date: 07 Apr 03 - 09:15 PM
"Interesting to see this thread raised again. In the end, we don't do this song. Too many questions were answered with references to escaped slave songs. Enough for us not to do it.
Thanks to everyone who has rung in here. Your suggestions and points of view have helped in many ways."
**
8.
Subject: RE: Background of Brother Ephus
From: GUEST,Booklyn Rose
Date: 30 Jun 22 - 05:44 PM
"I'm reading "the Beautiful Music All Around Us" by Stephen Wade. He discusses ten field recordings from the Library of Congress collection - discussing the circumstances under which they were recorded (in the 1930's & 1940's) and discussing the singers and the communities from which they came. He writes over and over about the influences of minstrel songs, recorded songs from jukeboxes, and songs from oral tradition, and how they are mixed and reinterpreted by different singers. My guess about Brother Ephus is that there is no one definitive version and no single meaning. “…
****
ADDENDUM: INFORMATION AND COMMENTS ABOUT "EEPHING"
[comments from the discussion thread for this showcased video]
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOCaS2WvjAY
1.wepecket, 2010
"And Leroy Troy's vocalizations at the beginning are known as
"eephers." "
2.
"It may be spelled "Eeph" but its pronounced EEP."
**
Reply
3. Two Spirit Banjo, 2017
"jeremiah lindstrom Nah, it's pronounced as it is spelled.
Uncle Eeph (or Eef) is spelled that way because the song (as Leroy showed us)
uses "Eefing" which is the Appalachian equivalent to the German Jodel"
**
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=119521
Subject: Eephing (type of vocal technique or 'mouth music')
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Mar 09 - 02:00 PM
"Eephing is an old-time country style of vocal percussion somewhat similar to the recent "beatboxing" performed by hip-hop artists.
It is sometimes spelled eaphing, eefing, or eafing, but it is not related to effing or F'ing, a euphemism for f**king.
I call it percussion only because it sounds like percussion—it is much more rhythmic than melodic. It doesn't literally involve hitting anything, but it is often accompanied by truly percussive techniques like hamboning....
"From Dictionary of American Regional English by Frederic
Gomes Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 1985): https://books.google.com/books?id=vAr2T4Bh7nkC&pg=PA275
Eephing vbl n [Echoic] Cf hoodling, whoop B
Creating wordless vocal music made up of nonsense syllables
and percussive sounds; also n eaf such music.
1971 in 1978 I'm on My Journey Home (Phonodisc) wTN, [My
maternal uncle] called it hoodlin'; they call it eephin' now. He [=the uncle]
got it from somebody at a dance up at Dyersburg, Tennessee. 1978 Wolfe I'm on
My Journey Home 2/1, [Liner notes:] Eephing (or hoodling) is one of a number of
vocal-percussive effects still found in the mid-South....[It can be]...created
by tickling...[the] throat...altering...[the] mouth cavity...tapping the
cheeks....It has been reported in Arkansas, Kentucky, and
Mississippi....Eephing has also been found among Afro-Americans. It is
customarily performed informally in relaxed social situations. 1978 Dance Shuckin'
& Jivin' 323 VA [Black], Have you ever heard this thing called "The
Eaf"? Ee-poop-se-de-da-pa-de-da....Well, Bill Robinson [1878-1949, also
known as "Mr. Bojangles"] and I used to go around and say that thing
[=a long rhyme]...And then we start singing, "Ee-doop,
se-da-da-pa-de-da-pa-pop!" "...
-snip-
This is the way that "f" word is given in that comment.
I quoted these mudcat comments in the pancocojams post entitled "Fats Waller - Eep, Ipe, Wanna Piece Of Pie (sound file, lyrics, & information)". http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/01/fats-waller-eep-ipe-wanna-piece-of-pie.html . The "eep, ipe" portion of that title is a form of "eephing" that lives on in versions of contemporary hand clap rhyme "Ooh Ah I Wanna Pie Of Pie".
Here's another comment from that same Mudcat discussion thread:
| Subject: RE: Eephing (type of vocal technique or 'mouth music') From: GUEST,Michael Garber Date: 27 Sep 17 - 11:33 AM Thanks for all this information. I've been collecting info for twelve years about eephing, and the result is an article about to come out in American Music (academic journal), but until today I never thought to check the Mudcat Cafe site (I feel so stupid -- often!) and never noticed about the song Fats Waller recorded until I heard it on a CD a few days ago. Thanks so much for the info on that song. The article is in press, I think, so I don't think I can add a citation to this great thread. In brief: The term "eeph" and "eephing" seems to first turn up in relation to a performance team of the 1890s, Williamson and Stone. Stone (the brother of star Fred Stone) died young; Williamson only revived his eephing briefly in 1918. But phrases relating to it, including the "gimme a piece of pie" reference, turn up in dribs and drabs through the decades. And what Jimmy Riddle calls "hoodling" also appears briefly here and there, including in the Cliff Edwards work mentioned in this string, and the "Swamp Root" recording you mention above, but also in a (very) few other places." |
****
This concludes Part II of this two part pancocojams series.
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