Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides information from two websites about the online folk music forum "Mudcat Cafe" (also known as "Mudcat Discussion Forum", or "Mudcat").
This post also provides some of my observations about Mudcat Discussion Forum as an African American member of that forum from September 5, 2004 to November 11, 2014. A few of my early comments as a guest of that forum and as a new member of that forum are also included in this pancocojams post.
The content of this post is presented for historical and folkloric purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Max D. Spiegel, the founder of Mudcat and thanks to all Mudcat members. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post.
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INFORMATION ABOUT MUDCAT CAFE (also known as "MUDCAT DISCUSSION FORUM")
Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudcat_Caf%C3%A9
"The Mudcat Café is an online discussion group and song and
tune database, which also includes many other features relating to folk music.
History
The website was originally founded in October 1996 as a
Blues-oriented discussion site.[1] It was named after a Mississippi Delta
region catfish, capable of living in muddy waters, known locally as a mudcat.
This region was the birthplace of the American Delta Blues style. Mudcat Café
later transitioned from a blues music forum to a folk music forum. The website
incorporated the Digital Tradition song database after the database lost its
original home.[2] Max D. Spiegel, the website's founder, is still its administrator
as of 2023.
Content
Membership is free and the site is run by volunteers.
Forum
The discussion group (the Forum) is divided into
music-related and non-music-related topics:
The music-related section hosts lively discussions on American folk music, British folk music and that of many other cultures, origins and lyrics of songs, folklore and related information. Information is provided and maintained on a large number of folk clubs, folk festivals, music sessions and dances around the world. Requests for origins, lyrics and chords of songs are answered here. Many performing artists also contribute to the discussions from time to time.
The non-music section contains discussion on everything
unrelated to music.
Digital Tradition song database
Mudcat hosts both a web-based and a downloadable version of
the Digital Tradition song database (also known as DigiTrad or DT). It was
started in 1988 by pooling the song collections of Dennis Cook and Susan
Friedman in electronic form, using askSam format. The song database is updated
on a regular basis by members ("Mudcatters") and now[when?] contains
the words to over 9,000 folk songs, many with an accompanying MIDI file[3] and
links to further information."...
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Excerpt #2
From https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0010769/
"Title
- The Mudcat Discussion Forum
Summary
- The Mudcat Café is an online discussion group and song and tune database, which also includes many other features relating to folk music. It grew out of a Blues-oriented discussion site started in October 1996, and incorporated the Digital Tradition song database (started in 1988) after the database lost its original home. The song database is updated on a regular basis by members and now contains the words to over 9,000 folk songs, many with an accompanying audio file and links to further information.
[...]
Created / Published
- United States.
[...]Access Condition
- None
Online Format
- web page"...
- -snip-
What "access condition" means:
I believe that "access condition" means whether there are any conditions that users must meet in order to access and use that discussion forum. "None" means that users can access that forum for free.
However, particularly from 2011 to 2014, there was at least one condition for publishing comments on Mudcat. I'm referring to the rule that may still exist that guests had to use one name or their full name, or a consistent description (such as "Pittsburghgal") in the heading for their comment. If they didn't add a name to the heading of their comment, that comment wouldn't be published.
A number of times children or teenagers forgot to add a name to their comment. Instead of not being published as that rule stipulates, that comment would be published with the heading "GUEST". Sometimes underneath that comment the lead Mudcat curator Joe Offer would add a reminder of this rule rather than disallowing that comment from being published. I'm grateful that Joe Offer was lenient at those times with that particular population of guests as that could have soured those young people from ever posting on that forum or on other online forums. Plus we would have missed having those examples that they shared as part of the folkloric record.- -snip-
What "Online format- webpage means:
When I was active on Mudcat and still to this day (January 22, 2024) Mudcat is text (words only).It doesn't have any videos, audio files, photographs, or emojis.
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ADDITIONAL NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS ABOUT MUDCAT DISCUSSION FORUM
by Azizi Powell, January 22, 2024
General comments about Mudcat Discussion Threads
Mudcat discussion forum is divided into music and non music sections. The music threads largely focuses on English language folk songs of the UK and the USA. However, there are also some discussion threads about the folk songs of other English speaking countries such as Canada and Australia. In addition, Mudcat Discussion forum also includes some English language folk songs from Jamaica and some other Caribbean nations.
Children's rhymes, singing games, and cheers are folkloric material
There were some Mudcat discussion threads about children's recreational rhymes and singing games before I joined that forum. During my membership on that forum, I started and/or was a very active participant on a number of new discussion threads about that folkloric material. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to have been any new discussion threads on children's recreational rhymes, singing games, or cheers since I voluntarily ended my Mudcat membership (in November 2014).
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Who could start Mudcat discussion threads and who could comment on Mudcat discussion threads
During the decade that I was a Mudcat member, guests could start new music discussion threads and post comments on those threads and already existing music threads. However, at least during my later years as a Mudcat member, guests could read Mudcat non-music discussion threads, but couldn't start or publish comments on non-music threads.
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How long are Mudcat discussion threads open for comments?
Mudcat discussions are almost always open for new comments. It's very rare that the comment sections of any Mudcat discussion thread is closed for comments. The only reason that I've ever seen for a Mudcat curator to close a thread is because that thread is a magnet for spam.For example: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=63097&messages=151&page=4."Folklore: Do kids still do clapping rhymes?"
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Demographics - Members
I recall there being at least one demographic survey taken and published with comments about Mudcat membership during the time that I was active on that forum. However, I can't easily find that particular post. I recall that that survey documented that there were slightly more males than females who were Mudcat members, that most Mudcat members were (like me) over fifty years of age, and that slightly more Mudcat members were from the United States than from the United Kingdom. I also recall a few Mudcat members from Canada, Australia, Ne Zealand, Germany, and one member from Japan.
That demographic survey/comments and some other comments on certain Mudcat discussion threads documented that there were very few People of Color who were members of Mudcat. During my decade as an active member of that forum, I was the only Person of Color-besides for one woman from Australia, one man from Japan, and one Black man from Nigeria who I "met" when he emailed me on my cocojams.com website. I convinced him to join Mudcat, but he only posted a couple of comments there for about a month and I lost contact with him.
There was also a Mudcat member who contacted me by private electronic message to let me know that he was African American, but he didn't want anyone to know that. Although I didn't agree with that decision, I honored that man's confidentiality. There were a number of Mudcat discussion that were specifically on race-most of which I didn't begin, but many of which I joined. In contrast, I don't recall any discussion thread that that man joined specifically about race or when race was mentioned.
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Demographics - Guests/Non-members
Mudcat Guests were (are) non-members of that online forum who (I believe) usually learned about the discussion threads they posted comments on via Google search or other online search engines.
On Mudcat discussion threads about children's recreational rhymes, there are considerably more guest commenters than Mudcat members. For example, https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=63097&messages=151&page=3 for the four page Mudcat post entitled "Folklore: Do Kids still do clapping rhymes. (The higher number of guest to member posts occurs throughout that entire four page discussion thread, but is most notable on page 3.)- Particularly on Mudcat discussion threads about children's recreational rhymes, the commenters were much younger. Some of those commenters self-identified as teenagers, college students, or elementary (primary) school students. Furthermore, the guest commenters in these discussion threads were much more racially diverse than the discussion threads where all or most of the commenters were Mudcat members. This racial diversity can be determined based on the guests' names, the guests' self-identification in their comments, and/or other comments. In addition, many of the examples that the guests shared in these Mudcat discussion threads were examples or versions of examples from African American culture, and therefore (given the background of most Mudcat members) were largely unfamiliar to that forum's members.
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HOW I BECAME A MEMBER OF MUDCAT DISCUSSION FORUM & OTHER OBSERVATIONS ABOUT MUDCAT
By Azizi Powell, January 22, 2024
I'm an African American woman who was a very active participant on Mudcat folk music forum from September 5, 2004 through much of 2012. After that, I didn't post as much on that forum and I voluntarily stopped posting on Mudcat on November 11, 2014. I did so mostly to concentrate on this pancocojams blog which I began in August 2011.
That said, if people read certain Mudcat discussion threads, it's clear that sometimes I was the target of trolling from certain Mudcat members. I emphasize the fact that I voluntarily left Mudcat in this pancocojams post because I want those people and others to know that I wasn't kicked out of that forum.
Also, I would be lying if I didn't admit that I was tired of being the only Black person on Mudcat. I admit that I didn't have to respond to requests to explain things like what did sports commentator Don Imus' mean when he called Black women university basketball players "nappy headed hoes"? But I've learned since then that I didn't have to bear that burden and I'm much happier for letting it go.
As regular visitors to pancocojams are aware, I re-publish a lot of material from Mudcat on pancocojams. I publish this material on pancocojams for folkloric reasons in part because lately-actually for quite some time-Mudcat has been sporadic in its availability and I want to help ensure that its rich treasure trove of material is shared as much as possible.
I always publish material from Mudcat and from other sources with citations and thanks to those commenters who I quote.
I readily acknowledge and sincerely thank certain Mudcat members in particular for role modeling for me and others how to transcribe folk songs from recordings. I also acknowledge and thank certain Mudcat members for teaching me and others through their role model the importance of gathering and documenting not just the text (words) of folk songs (and, and particularly for me, children's recreational rhymes, cheers, and singing games), but also as much information that you can about who, where, when, and how those examples are sung and performed.
- None
As per the Mudcat information page that I can still access by clicking my name in the heading of a discussion thread comment, from September 4, 2004 to November 11, 2014 I posted (wrote and published) a total of 10,171 comments on Mudcat. Many of these posts were on discussion threads that I started about children's rhymes and cheers. My last Mudcat post provided information about and a link to my new blog cocojams2.com.Cocojams2 is a blog that focuses on children's rhymes,cheers, and singing games. Many of those examples were previously found on my multipage cocojams.com website. I voluntarily closed that website because I was having problems with the server company I used. Also, in contrast to the Google blog formats, for cocojams.com I had to rely on the generous assistance of my technical savy friend Lucas Musewe to post anything on cocojams.com and it was difficult for that format to post videos. In contrast, the Google blog format made it (and still makes it) easy for me to post new material, including YouTube videos.
Perhaps ironically, my first post as a member of Mudcat was on a thread about the origin of the song "Kumbaya".https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=65010
For background purposes, here are three complete comments and two partial comments from that particular Mudcat discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only)
1. Subject: RE: Kumbaya As a non-Gullah African American, I stand by the position that this spiritual is from the Gullah traditions and means "Come by here". We {African Americans} need to be better at protecting our heritage from well meaning misstatements and conscious theft. That being said, I do like reading posts here and am learning more about folk music in the United States and across the Atlantic. However, it doesn't appear to be very many African Americans or other people of color posting here. Sometimes race and ethnicity does matter." ****
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3. Subject: RE: Kumbaya
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 10:47 AM
Azizi, I also hope you hang around and post from your perspective.
There are the origins of songs, and then there are where they end up. A couple I can think of that are usually known because white folks sing them, but got from black folks are 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore' and 'Sloop John B'. Song origins are interesting to know about, but I think songs 'belong' to whoever sings them. It's good that the songs are kept alive, but I wonder how they sounded when previous caretakers sang them. I hope they still do, but it seems increasingly rare to hear about people who sing songs they learned in and from their own communities."...
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4. Subject: RE: Kumbaya
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 05:26 PM
I'm not obsessed with the origins of Kumbaya but I will add that it is composed using common African American characteristics such as repetition, and short 4 line open ended verses such as someone's weeping/praying/singing/shouting etc etc etc.) Also see yourDictionary.com which states that Kumbayah started in the 1920s as a Gullah spiritual song. However, that website also states that the Uncle Remus tales was written in Gullah language, and I'm not sure that's true.
Regarding the need for more African Americans to embrace blues, jazz and other folk music..true true.
While my primary interest is in children's game song, rhymes, and cheers and United States secular slave songs, I am very interested in helping to raise awareness about other Black music genres.
I also love to learn about other musical genres in the USA and elsewhere.
I learned about this website two years ago from someone named Frank, I believe, who visited my website www.cocojams.com because I had included an example of Jim Along Josie. I wasn't ready to join Mudcat then but I have told others about your site and will continue to do so."
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5. Subject: RE: Kumbaya
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 09:07 PM
Hi, Azizi. Long ago I was Frank.
I would like to get correct information on Kumbaya aka Come by Here, Lord. I have posted the information 'as I know it' but that, of course, is not the last word. Some of the singers of Seeger's time, I think, have put their own spin on the song."...
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Here's another early comment that I posted on Mudcat. That comment was posted as a guest probably because I still hadn't figured out how to post on that forum as a member.
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=52464&messages=60&page=1
Subject: RE: Jim Along Josie: lyrics and origin
From GUEST, Azizi
Date: 25 Jul 04 - 12:35 AM
"I'm writing this to correct information I made some two years ago on my website cocojams.com that I see have found there way here and Lord knows where else. Let me first apologize and offer the following information as a way of making up for any confusion I caused.
Firstly, I wrote that Jim Along Josey is included in Thomas Talley's 1922 Negro Folk Rhymes. I was mistaken. The versions I was speaking of are found in Dorothy Scarborough's 1925 book on the Trail Of Negro Folk Songs. That Folklore Associates' edition of Scarborough's book, published in 1963 has three different versions of Jim Along Josie {pps 104-106), one called Jim Along, Josey, one called Hold My Mule, and one that Scarborough notes is "a variant of the Josey song
I also said that a josey was a woman's undergarment. I was wrong. As someone wrote in this thread or another, "Josey" is a woman's coat. See John Russell Bartlett, The Dictionary of Americanisms: New York Crescent Books, originally published 1849. "Joseph, a very old riding coat for women, scarcely now to be seen or heard of-Forby's Vocabulary. A garment made of Scotch plaid, for an outside coat or habit, was wornin New England about the year 1830, called a Joseph by some a Josey.
Olivia was drawn as an Amazon, sitting upon a bank of
flowers, dressed in a green Joseph.-Godsmith, Vicar of Wakefield .
I still believe that is "Josey" was {sometimes}used as dance name. See the lines "Hold my mule while I dance Josey
Hold my mule while I dance Josey
Hold my mule while I dance Josey
Oh, Miss Susan Brown."
The other two verses given are: "Wouldn't give a nickel if I couldn't dance Josey". and "Had a glass of buttermilk and I danced Josey".
However it may be possible that an earlier name for the "Josey" dance was "Jim Along, Josey." In that case "Jim Along" probably was the equivalent of the phrase "Get a-long", which Scarborough uses in the chorus of this song "Hey, get a-long, get a-long, Josey"...
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