Coffee Grows On White Oak Trees
E.C. Perrow- 1912 & Wolf Collection

Traditional Old-Time Breakdown; North Carolina- USA; Widely spread.

DATE: 1800s- 1909 transcription of Kelley Harrell 'Charley He's a Good Ol' Man' recorded on August 12, 1927 in Charlotte NC and issued in January 1928 as Victor 21069. Reissued on Kelly Harrell 'Complete Recorded Works Vol 2 1926-1929' Document DOCD-8027.

RECORDING INFO: Samantha Bumgarner, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 146, 1924); Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 15709-D, c. 1931) Frank Blevins & His Tar Heel Rattlers, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 15210-D, 1927); Lee Sexton, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (on MMOKCD); Frank Blevins & his Tar Heel Rattlers, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 15210-D, 1927; on TimesAint01, LostProv1); Bradley Kincaid, "Pretty Little Pink" (on CrowTold01); New Lost City Ramblers, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (on NLCR03, NLCR11, NLCRCD1); Hobart Smith, "Fly Around, My Blue-Eyed Girl" (on LomaxCD1702); Blackard, Dad;'s Moonshiners. It'll Never Happen Again. Old Time String Bands, Vol. 1, Marimac 9110, Cas (198?), cut# 6 (Susannah Gal); Blevins, Frank; and His Tarheel Rattlers. Ballads and Breakdowns of the Golden Era, Columbia CS 9660, LP (196?), cut#B.06 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Bogtrotters (Bog Trotters). Original Bogtrotters, Biograph RC 6003, LP (196?), cut# 11; Camp Creek Boys. Camp Creek Boys, County 709, LP (1967), cut# 6 (Susannah Gal); Cedar Point String Band. Cedar Point String Band, Roane, Cas (1993), cut# 11 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Cockram, Grover. Old Five String, Vol 2, Heritage (Galax) 052, Cas (1991), cut# 6 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Cockerham, Jarrell and Jenkins. Down to the Cider Mill, County 713, LP (1968), cut# 5 (Susannah Gal); Crisp, Rufus. Rufus Crisp, Folkways FA 2342, LP (1972), cut#A.02 (Blue Eyed Gal); Douglas, Wilson. Boatin' Up the Sandy, Marimac AHS 1, Cas (1989), cut# 3 (Blue Eyed Miss); East, Earnest; & the Pine Ridge Boys. Old Time Mountain Music, County 718, LP (1969), cut# 7 (Susannah Gal); Feldmann, Peter. How to Play Clawhammer Banjo, Sonyatone STI-104, LP (1975), cut# 10 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Gaskin, Phyllis. Mountain Dulcimer - Galax Style, Heritage (Galax) 094C, Cas (1991), cut# 8 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Hall, Kenny; and the Sweets Mill String Band. Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band, Vol.II, Bay 103, LP (197?), cut# 3 (Susannah Gal); Herald Angels. You've Been a Friend to Me, Herald Angels HA1001, Cas (1994), cut# 18 (Fly Around); Hicks, Buna. Traditional Music of Beech Mountain, NC, Vol II, Folk Legacy FSA-023, LP (1965), cut# 18 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Hillbillies. Fiddlers Convention in Mountain City, Tennessee, County 525, LP (1972), cut# 8 (Blue Eyed Gal) ; Honig, Peter. Young Fogies, Heritage (Galax) 056, LP (198?), cut# 36 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Howard, Clint; and Fred Price. Old-Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. Part 1, Folkways FA 2355, LP (1961), cut# 17 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Iron Mountain String Band (Galax). Music from the Mountain, Heritage (Galax) 101C, Cas (1992), cut# 5 (Old Time Flyin' Around); Jarrell, Tommy; and Kyle Creed. June Apple, Mountain 302, LP (1972), cut# 9 (Susannah Gal) ; Kazee, Buell. Buell Kazee, June Appal JA 0009, LP, cut# 6a (Blue Eyed Gal); Kazee, Buell. Old Time Herald, Old Time Herald OTH, Ser (1987-), 3/3, p34 (Pretty Little Miss); Kimble Family. Pine Knots School Rowdies, Marimac 9037, Cas (1992), cut# 14 (Susannah Gal); Kincaid, Bradley. Bradley Kincaid. Volume 2, Old Homestead OHCS 155, LP (1984), cut#A.06 (Pretty Little Pink); Luckiamute River String Band. Waterbound, Lucks '94, Cas (1994), cut#A.01 (Fly Away My Pretty Little Miss); Lundy, Emmett. Fiddle Tunes from Grayson County, String 802, LP (1977), cut# 17 (Susannah Gal); Lunsford, Bascam Lamar. Appalachian Minstrel, Washington VM 736, LP (1956), cut#B.02 (Fly Around My Blue Eyed Gal); Mabus, Joel. Clawhammer, Fossil, Cas (198?), cut# 6 (Pretty Little Pink); Michael, McCreesh & Campbell. Host of the Air, Front Hall FHR-023, LP (1980), cut# 3 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Mill Run Dulcimer Band. Sunday at the Mill, Lark LRLP 3094, LP (1980), cut#A.01; Moore, Charlie. Charlie Moore Sings Good Bluegrass, Vetco LP 3011, LP (196?), B.01 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); New Lost City Ramblers. New Lost City Ramblers, Vol. 3, Folkways FA 2398, LP (1961), cut# 17 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); New Lost City Ramblers. Old-Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1964/1976), p 66 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Old Reliable String Band. Old Reliable String Band, Folkways FA 2475, LP (1963), cut#A.01 (Fly Around); Old Virginia Fiddlers. Old Time Fiddle, Patrick County, VA, County 201, LP (1977), cut# 9 (Susannah Gal) ; Pegram, George; and Parham, Red (Walter). Pickin' and Blowin', Riverside RLP 12-60, LP (195?), cut# 9 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Piney Creek Weasels. Squirrel Heads and Gravy, Hay Holler HHH-1101, CD (1996), cut# 4 (Fly Around My Blue Eyed Gal); Powell, Dirk. Hand Me Down, Rounder 0444, CD (1999), cut# 5; Price, Truman; and Jane Keefer. Songs and Tunes of the Oregon Trail, True West TW C-21, Cas (1991), cut# 13; Ramsey, Obray. Obray Ramsey Sings Folksongs from the Three Laurels, Prestige International INT 13020, LP (195?), cut#B.03 (Shady Grove); Reed, Ola Belle. Ola Belle Reed, Rounder 0021, LP (1973), cut# 4 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink) ; Russell Family. Old Time Dulcimer Sounds from the Mountains, County 734, LP (1972), cut# 8 (Old Susannah); Sexton, Lee "Boy". Mountain Music of Kentucky, Smithsonian/Folkways SF 40077, CD (1996), cut#2.62 (Fly Around); Shelor Family. Eight Miles Apart, Heritage (Galax) 022, LP (1979), cut# 7 (Susannah Gal); Slaughter, Matokie; and the Back Creek Buddies. Saro, Marimac 9028, Cas (1990), cut# 11 (Jaybird Died with the Whooping Cough); Smith, Hobart. Banjo Songs, Ballads and Reels from the Southern Mountains, Prestige International INT 25004, LP (196?), cut# 15 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink) ; Smith, Hobart. Southern Journey. Vol. 2: Ballads and Breakdowns, Rounder 1702, CD (1997), cut#17 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink); Stoneman, Ernest; and the Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers. Day in the Mountains, County 512, LP (196?), cut# 7e (Possum Trot School Exhibition) ; Ward, Wade. Uncle Wade. A Memorial to Wade Ward, Old Time Virginia Banjo ..., Folkways FA 2380, LP (1973), cut# 2; Whitetop Mountain Band. Seedtime on the Cumberland. Sampler 1990-91, June Appal JA 0067C, Cas (1992), cut# 1 (Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss/Pink) Lee Sexton, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (on MMOKCD); Frank Blevins & his Tar Heel Rattlers, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 15210-D, 1927; on TimesAint01, LostProv1); Bradley Kincaid, "Pretty Little Pink" (on CrowTold01); New Lost City Ramblers, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (on NLCR03, NLCR11, NLCRCD1); Hobart Smith, "Fly Around, My Blue-Eyed Girl" (on LomaxCD1702)

OTHER NAMES: ‘Wheevily Wheat” “Blue-Eyed Girl,” “Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss;” “Blue-Eyed Girl,” "Susannah Gal," "Blue Eyed Miss," “Fly Around My Pretty Little Pink”

SOURCES: Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 66, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss"; Darling-NAS, p. 254, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss"; Silber-FSWB, p. 39, "Fly Around My Blue-Eyed Gal"; Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc;

Ballad Index: Coffee Grows (Four in the Middle)
DESCRIPTION: Playparty in two or three parts: "Coffee grows on white oak tree, The river flows with brandy o'er, Go choose someone to roam with you...." "Four in the middle, you can't get around..." (may have more verses) "Railroad, steamboat, river, and canal..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (JAFL 27)
KEYWORDS: playparty courting nonballad love train drink
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE,So)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Randolph 524, "Four in the Middle" (1 text plus 8 excerpts and/or fragments, 1 tune)
BrownIII 78, "Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees" (7 texts plus 1 excerpt and mention of 1 more, but almost all mixed -- all except "H" have the "Coffee grows" stanza, but "A" also has verses from "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss"; "and "C" through "H" are mostly "Little Pink"; "B" is mixed with "Raccoon" or some such)
Hudson 154, p. 301, "Coffee Grows on White-Oak Trees" (1 short text); also 85, p. 212, "Going to the Mexican War" (1 fragment, with the "Knapsack on my Shoulder" text and also the "Coffee Grows" stanza)
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 105-106, "Hold My Mule" (1 text, 1 tune, which Scarborough implies is a "Jim Along, Josie" by-blow but which appears to be built on the "Four in the Middle" segment of this song)
Lomax-FSUSA 31, "Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, RAGECANL*
Roud #735
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Bheir Me O" (melody has same first lines as "Coffee Grows")
cf. "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (floating lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Raging Canal

NOTES: This is part of the large Western Country family of songs that includes “Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss," "Four in the Middle" and “Wheevily Wheat.” The versions from Wolf Folklore collected in the 1950s and 1960s are listed Coffee Grows (Four in the Middle) showing the relationship with the play-party song "Four in the Middle." Also found in Randolph, Vol. III, #524, "Four in the Middle"; Brown, Vol. III, #78, "Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees." Randolph's Ozark version gives the tune as "Skip to My Lou."  Some versions (See C. below) use lyrics from "The Raging Canal," a song popularized by Country star Jim Reeves.

According to Mr. Jack Escue [Wolf Folklore 1957]: "In this sing and play, they're all around a circle. They're going 'round and 'round and there's a extra boy and a girl in the center of the ring, and when it comes to choose your partner, why, each one of them chooses another boy and another girl, and they swing by the right, and back by the left, and on around. And then another couple joins in when it says six in the middle and they do the same thing. Swing them by the right and then back by the left, and then when you sing all in the middle, that means all eight is in there a-swinging with the right and then with the left. And that's the way you do that."

The song was known as a play party-game in Scotland in the 1800s: From Golspie- Contributions to its Folklore by Edward Williams Byron Nicholson 1897.

"J. S. tells me that the game [Four in the Middle] is played as follows. Two girls go out of the ring and then return to the middle of it, and dance, while the others walk round. They end by each taking- another girl out, and the girls so taken out repeat the performance — the first two joining the ring in their stead.

M. S. tells me that they dance in a ring, repeating these words, 'Four—joy,' until they are tired of them, when they change to another rime. Mr. A. M. Dixon, the postmaster of Golspie, tells me that 'the soldier's joy' is the name of a country dance in which there are four in the middle, who cross hands and swing round. Sir John Stainer adds that this is the Chain in the old 'Lancers'."

Here are the lyrics from Perrow:

COFFEE GROWS ON WHITEOAK TREES- SONGS AND RHYMES FROM THE SOUTH BY E. C. PERROW. (From Virginia; country whites; singing of Miss N. B. Graham; 1912.)

Coffee grows on white-oak trees;
Rivers all flow with brandy;
Rocks all shine with a glittering gold,
And the girls as sweet as candy.

A. COFFEE GROWS (FOUR IN THE MIDDLE) Recorded by John Quincy Wolf, Jr.,
Sung by: Jack Escue; Recorded in Sidney, AR 8/30/57
Listen: Jack Escue; http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/escuecoffee1242.mp3

Coffee grows on a white oak tree,
River flows with brandy,
Choose you one as we go out,
Sweet as 'lasses candy.
There's four in the middle,
And you'd better get around.
There's four in the middle,
And you'd better get around.
There's four in the middle
And you'd better get around,
For I love my Susie Brown.

Six in the middle,
And you'd better get around.
There's six in the middle
And you'd better get around.
Six in the middle
And you'd better get around,
For I love my Susie Brown.

Now we're all in the middle,
And you'd better get around.
We're all in the middle
And you'd better get around.
We're all in the middle
And you'd better get around,
For I love my Susie Brown.

B. (FOUR IN THE MIDDLE; COFFEE GROWS ON WHITE OAK TREES)
Sung by: Emma Puterbaugh Medlin
Listen: http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/medlincoffee1261.mp3

Coffee grows on white oak trees,
The river flows with brandy o’er.
Go choose you one to roam with you,
As sweet as sugar and candy, too.
Rally-ally-um-bum, sugar and tea.
Rally-ally-um-bum, candy.
Rally-ally-um-bum, sugar and tea,
Swing your little miss so handy.
Handy, handy, handy
Candy, candy, candy.

C. COFFEE GROWS ON WHITE OAK TREES (FOUR IN THE MIDDLE)
Sung by: Mrs. W.B. (Elizabeth) Apple; (with piano accompaniment)
Recorded in Huff, AR 8/27/62
Listen: http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/applecoffee1265.mp3

(Comment by Mrs. Apple: "This is a medley that I'm going to do, and I'm going to do the slow part, and all the fast part of the singing I'm going to try to do in one breath.")

Coffee grows on white oak trees;
The river flows with brandy.
Go choose a girl to dance with thee,
As sweet as 'lasses candy.

Four in the middle and you can't jump Josie,
Four in the middle and you can't jump Josie,
Four in the middle and you can't jump Josie,
Ah, Susan Brown.

Get out of the rain if you can't jump Josie,
Get out of the rain if you can't jump Josie,
Get out of the rain if you can't jump Josie,
Hello, Susan Brown.

Railroad, steamboat, river and canal,
I lost my honey in that raging canal,
And she's gone, gone, gone,
And she's gone, gone, gone,
And she's gone in that raging canal.

(Comment by Mrs. Apple: "This is an old fiddle tune that I'm going to play. It's the first tune I ever played with my dad. I played the organ; he played the fiddle. I think I must have been 10 years old.")

[Fiddle tune follows, played on piano.]

(Dr. Wolf: "What's the name of it?"

Mrs. Apple: "I don't know . . . I don't know the name of this tune. It's an old fiddle tune that my Dad used to play. I don't know the name of it.")

[A second fiddle tune follows.]

D. COFFEE GROWS ON WHITE OAK TREES (FOUR IN THE MIDDLE)
Sung by: W.P. Detherow; Recorded in Batesville, AR, 6/25/52
 
Listen: http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/detherowcoffee1236.mp3

(Mr. Detherow: "They ring up as they did in the other play, four in the center, and choose in, and they do-si in the middle. After it's repeated several times, then they sing all in the middle and they all swing on the outside. They change partners and swing while they do-si in the middle.")

Coffee grows on white oak trees;
The river flows with brandy.
Choose a one as we go around,
Sweet as 'lasses candy.

Four in the middle and you better get around,
Four in the middle and swing.
Four in the middle and you better get around;
I love Miss Susie Brown.
(Complete stanza repeated)

All in the middle and you better get around;
All in the middle and swing.
All in the middle and you better get around;
I love Miss Susie Brown.
(Complete stanza repeated)