Minstrel Banjo

For enthusiasts of early banjo

What are the most successful songs that you have in your repertoire that you don't have to qualify, change, explain, or skip verses?    

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There are actually quite a few.  Here are some from my repetoire (I don't have all of these memorized, but I can play them with a cheat sheet).  Not all of these are classically "banjo" tunes. These are in no particular order.

 

Boatman's Dance, Nebber Do to Gib it Up So, Gwine to Run All Night, The Racoon Hunt, Dixie, Old Dan Tucker, Lucy Long, Hard Times (Foster), Kiss Me Quick and Go, Lorena, Machine Poetry, Rosa Lee, The Raging Canal, Rosin the Beau, Der Deutsher's Dog, Sweet Evalina, Wild Rover (the temperance version from the 1840s), Singular Dreams, The Cottage by the Sea, If You Only Got a Moustache, Listen to the Mocking Bird, The Mermaid Song, The One Horse Open Sleigh, Pop Goes the Weasle, The Captain with His Whiskers. 

 

Of course, there are all the hymns, although some people find those offensive...

 

I change one word in Keemo Kimo - Darkey becomes Slave folk.  This works well, and I don't feel that the song is in any way compromised. 

 

This is a little tough,  there are a few songs where skipping one verse makes the song useable.

 

 

One further thing.  Many of the songs in our repetoire were used by various minstrel groups.  There are therefore several different sets of lyrics to choose from for the song.  Mary Blane is an example.  If I remember correctly, there are at least 11 different versions to the song.  There are about two that I find I can use.  One of them uses the N word, and in all honestly, I will sing that version.  This is the version by W. German.  His published melody line is a little different from the original, but his words fit the original melody.  I am still careful about where I will sing this.
Those are some good ones John. Anybody do some of the many that the Buckleys wrote? Fred has his name to many titles. I don't think it matters if they are banjo songs. They are when you use a banjo.


Tim, that's an interesting thought.  The Buckleys did publish a lot of sheet music in addition to the tutors.  I haven't recently looked through them, but I have copies from the Lilly Library of a large number of them.  I'll see if I can look through them again to see what is there.


Tim Twiss said:

Those are some good ones John. Anybody do some of the many that the Buckleys wrote? Fred has his name to many titles. I don't think it matters if they are banjo songs. They are when you use a banjo.

Of the era - though not particularly "minstrel" Man On The Flying Trapeze, Villikens & Dinah, Father Dear Father,

When You and I Were Young Maggie (slightly post-bellum) The Man Behind the Plow (Westendorf - a great song)

 

 

 

Good suggestions. I just pulled out "Man on the Flying Trapeze". Always knew the first part, but the last verse concludes a twisty story...funny.  

If you like the melody and the way it works on the banjo of some 'objectionable' songs, you might try checking out AMERICA SINGING: NINETEENTH-CENTURY SONG SHEETS online.  It contains a lot of song verses about issues of the day "to be sung to" existing contemporary popular melodies.  It's great for those who are interested in historical events because, with no corporate sponsors or 19th C-equivalent FCC, the writers of these verses had no qualms of putting into verse how they felt about particular issues.  I guess this would make many of them 'controversial' but not necessarily racist........though racism does creep in, as well.   

There is, for example, "Zip Coon on the Go-Ahead Principle" about the Jackson Administration with verses referring to the National Bank and Nullification issues.

Also, several collections of campaign songs are online, such as "Rough & Ready Songster" c1848.

Campaign songs almost always utilized popular melodies of the day so that boisterous their supporters could immediately sing praises without the hurdle of learning a new melody.

Online, as well, are other 19th C sources such as "Anti-Slavery Harp" (also printed in 1848) which is a collection of abolitionists songs, several of which are ironically sung to the tunes of minstrel songs, "Dandy Jim of Caroline", "Oh, Susannah", and "Dan Tucker".

Amazingly, no one has yet mentioned Yankee Doodle, or Home Sweet Home.  Both of these are perhaps some of the most popular and well known songs in the nineteenth century. 
You're right!  I missed it.

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