Sule Greg Wilson plays "Jump Jim Crow"

Sule funkifies the minstrel tune made famous by "Daddy" Rice in the 1820s

Category:

Music

Tags:

• folk
• banjo
• minstrel
• minstrelsy
• old
• time
• african
• american
• r&b
• soul
• world
• music

[ikachina]

If you could do a version that is authentic and produce a better quality video, you'd be doing a great service for the folks like me who are interested in the history of this song.

I have searched quite a bit and so far only found an instrumental version of "Jump Jim Crow" that was authentic. I wish there was a video somewhere that showed exactly how it was sung and danced during the minstrel era.

[SuleDrum]

@ikachina The minstrel era goes back about 50 years before audio recordings were invented and about ten years before photography was invented, much less film or video. So, chances of finding a video are pretty slim. The version I'm playing came from the sheet music, as published in Hans Nathan's book, "Dan Emmett and the Rise of Negro Minstrelsy". From there, I funked it up. How much more "authentic" do you mean? Can you share the "authentic" instrumental version you found?

[ikachina]

@SuleDrum

I appreciate what you're saying. This is just something on my "wish list."

The recording I was talking about is located here:

The Library of Congress, Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection:

memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h­?ammem/afcreed:@field(NUMBER+@­band(afcreed+13035a39))

[SuleDrum]

@ikachina Domo arigato. It was a pleasure to hear that source recording. The fiddle tune definitely is an "outgrowth" of the A part of the song, the part--I believe--that was created by the Irish-American Rice. The B part, the chorus, is the part Rice got from the African American stablehand, I believe. And that part's not in the Euro-American fiddle tune. Interesting.

[aldiboronti]

Compared to how noble, wise and beneficent we are in the 21st century.

Believe it, people a couple of hundred years down the line will look back on us with horror and say how ignorant we were.

[SuleDrum]

@Zerojumpy Bitte shoen!

[Zerojumpy]

@SuleDrum Thanks a ton!

[SuleDrum]

@Zerojumpy I start with "Hello there all you people; I come from Tuckahoe. I guess you've heard about me; my name is old Jim Crow"

[doubleghod]

@leslieadisakyle Please return to Trinidad, bumba clot.

[maman666]

@SuleDrum its a racist stereotype of black people, thats why anti-black laws are called Jim Crow laws

[Zerojumpy]

What verse do you start with? Sorry but I can hardly hear it out.

[Naahnikki]

follow the drinking gourd