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Cornbread, 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea/Arkansas Boys/ Arkansas Sheik/ If You Want to Go A-Courtin'/West Virginia Gals/West Virginia Boys/When You Go A-Courtin'/Come Girls, Come/Hello Girls/ Kansas Boys/Cornbread, Molasses and Sassafras Tea
Traditional Old-Time Song and Breakdown; Minstrel origin
ARTIST: From June Carter; Carter Sisters
Listen: Lonzo and Oscar; Cornbread 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes.
EARLIEST DATE: "De Free Man" 1841; Collected by Cecil Sharp in 1916
RECORDING INFO Arkansas Sheik, The/ Arkansas Boys
Rt - Don't You Marry the Mormon Boys ; Come Girls, Come ; Poor Tuckahoe ; Kansas Boys ; Cheyenne Boys ; Come All You Virginia Girls ; Hello Girls
At - Arkansas Boys
Clayton McMichen & Riley Puckett, "The Arkansas Sheik" (Columbia 15686-D, 1931; rec. 1928)
1. Muir, Ann Mayo. So Goes My Heart, Folk Legacy FSI-099, LP (1985), cut#B.05 (Cousin Emmy's Blues)
2. New Lost City Ramblers. Remembrance of Things to Come, Folkways FTS 31035, LP (1973), cut# 17
3. Wallace, Jesse. Traditional Fiddle Music of the Ozarks. Volume 1, Rounder 0435, CD (1999), cut#11 (Old Leather Bonnet with a Hole in the Crown)
RECORDING INFO West Virginia Girls/Gals:
Rt - Come Girls, Come; Old Leather Bonnet with a Hole in the Crown
At - Last Three Drops
Uf - Fire On the Mountain [Appalachian]
Hollow Rock String Band. Hollow Rock String Band, Rounder 0024, LP (1974), trk# B.06
Krassen, Miles. Krassen, Miles / Appalachian Fiddle, Oak, sof (1973), p39
Krassen, Miles. Krassen, Miles / Clawhammer Banjo, Oak, sof (1974), p34
Slater, Alec. Slater, Alec / Clawhammer Banjo Solos, Mel Bay, Sof (1979), p57
RECORDING INFO Kansas Boys [Me II-B41]:
Rm - Harriet Tubman's Ballad
Uf - Come Girls, Come
Brand, Oscar. Courtin's a Pleasure and Other Folk Songs of the Southern App..., Elektra EKL 122, LP (1957), trk# A.07 (Kansas Boys)
Lingenfelter, Richard E., et.al.(eds.) / Songs of the American West, U. Calif Press, Bk (1968), p452 (Kansas Boys)
O'Bryant, Joan. Folksongs and Ballads of Kansas, Folkways FA 2134, LP (1957), trk# B.01 (Kansas Boys)
Sandburg, Carl (ed.) / American Songbag, Harcourt, Sof (1955/1928), p129 (Kansas Boys)
RECORDING INFO Come Girls, Come [Sh 75B/Me II-B41]:
Rt - Poor Tuckahoe; When You Go A-Courtin'; U-S-U Range
At - Arkansas Boys; Free "Nigger"; Johnny Cake
Rm - West Virginia Girls/Gals
Cousin Emmy, "Cousin Emmy's Blues" (also issued as "Come All You Virginia Gals") (Decca 24213, 1947)
New Lost City Ramblers, "The Arkansas Sheik" (on NLCR14)
Pete Seeger, "Texian Boys" (on PeteSeeger07, PeteSeeger07a)
Sandburg, Carl (ed.) / American Songbag, Harcourt, Sof (1955/1928), p128 (Hello Girls)
Cazden, Norman (ed.) / Merry Ditties, Bonanza Books, Bk (1958), p 66 (West Virginia Boys)
Lomax, John A. & Alan Lomax / Folk Song USA, Signet, Sof (1966/1947), # 11b (Texian Boys)
Sorrels, Rosalie (ed.) / Way Out in Idaho, Confluence, Sof (1991), p182 (Don't [You] Marry the Mormon Boys)
Scofield, Twilo (ed.) / An American Sampler, Cuthroat, Sof (1981), p 86 (Alsea Girls)
Silverman, Jerry / Folk Guitar - Folk Song, Scarborough Book, Sof (1983/1977), p 74 (Tex-I-An Boys)
Briegel, George F. (ed.) / 44 Old Time Morman and Far west Songs, Kessinger, Sof (1933), p49/#36 (Come Little Girls)
Fife, Austin E. & Alta S. / Cowboy and Western Songs, Bramhall House, Bk (1982/1969), p 25/# 9D (Mississippi Gals)
Drake, Rod. Owens, William A. (ed.) / Texas Folk Songs. 2nd edition, SMU Press, Bk (1976/1950), p110a [1952] (Come All You Mississippi Girls)
Fiddlin' Red and Patti O'Farrell. Gift to the Mountain, Fidllin' --, CD (2008), 4 (West Virginia Gals)
Gear, Jeanetta. Pound, Louise (ed.) / American Ballads and Songs, Scribner, Sof (1972/1922), p175/# 81 [1914] (Cheyenne Boys)
Groves, Lula. McIntosh, David S. / Folk Songs and Singing Games of the Illinois Ozarks, SIU Press, Bk (1974), p 25 [1950/02/09] (Illinois Gals)
Hannah, Mrs.; and Effie Mitchell. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians II, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 7/# 75B [1918/09/29] (If You Want to Go)
Hathaway, Mark. Owens, William A. (ed.) / Texas Folk Songs. 2nd edition, SMU Press, Bk (1976/1950), p111 [1941] (Come All You Mississippi Girls)
Hopkins, Al; and his Buckle Busters. Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol 4, Revenant RVN 211, CD (2004), trk# 2.03 [1928/12/20] (West Virginia Gals)
Kraber, Tony. Silber, Irwin / Songs of the Great American West, Dover, Sof (1967), p229 (Kansas Boys)
McNamara, Rory. Still Got That Look in His Eye, Kicking Mule KM 323, LP (1984), trk# B.05 (Come All You Virginia Girls)
Mitchell, J. D.. Lomax, John A. & Alan Lomax / Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, MacMillan, Bk (1938), p338 (Texian Boys)
Muir, Ann Mayo. So Goes My Heart, Folk Legacy FSI 099, LP (1985), trk# B.05 (Cousin Emmy's Blues)
Nash, Len. Fife, Austin E. & Alta S. / Cowboy and Western Songs, Bramhall House, Bk (1982/1969), p 22/# 9A (On the Road to California)
New Lost City Ramblers. Remembrance of Things to Come, Folkways FTS 31035, LP (1973/1966), trk# 17 (Arkansas Sheik)
O'Bryant, Joan. Asch, Moses (ed.) / 124 Folk Songs as Sung and Recorded on Folkways Reco, Robbins, Fol (1965), p 63 (Kansas Boys)
Risinger, Robert L.. Moore, Ethel & Chauncey O.(ed.) / Ballads and Folk Songs of the Southwes, Univ. of Okla, Bk (1964), p300/#144 [1940s] (Mississippi Girls)
Sorrels, Rosalie. Lonesome Roving Wolves. Songs & Ballads of the West, Green Linnet SIF 1024, CD (1980), trk# 2 [1960s] (Don't [You] Marry the Mormon Boys)
Sorrels, Rosalie. Songs of the Mormon Pioneers, Festival LB 2582, LP (196?), trk# B.03 (Don't [You] Marry the Mormon Boys)
Stephens, Ed. Randolph, Vance / Ozark Folksongs. Volume III, Humorous & Play-Party ..., Univ. of Missouri, Bk (1980/1946), p 12/#342A [1928/06/20] (Arkansas Boys)
Toelken, J. Barre. Garland of American Folksong, Prestige International INT 13023, LP (196?), trk# 3
Wasson, Laura. Randolph, Vance / Ozark Folksongs. Volume III, Humorous & Play-Party ..., Univ. of Missouri, Bk (1980/1946), p 12/#342B [1942/01/28] (Missouri Boys)
RECORDING INFO When You Go A-Courtin' [Sh 75/Me II-B40]:
Rt - Come Girls, Come
At - Down at the Old Man's House
Lomax, John A. & Alan Lomax / Folk Song USA, Signet, Sof (1966/1947), # 11
Fife, Austin E. & Alta S. / Cowboy and Western Songs, Bramhall House, Bk (1982/1969), p 24/# 9C (When I Went a Courting)
Boone, Sina. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians II, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 8/# 75C [1918/10/01] (If You Want to Go A-Courting)
Bradley, Bob. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians II, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 9/# 75D [1918/06/09] (If You Want to Go A-Courting)
Jones, William. McIntosh, David S. / Folk Songs and Singing Games of the Illinois Ozarks, SIU Press, Bk (1974), p 41 [1935/02/16] (If You Want to Go A-Courting)
Kelly, Maidy. Owens, William A. (ed.) / Texas Folk Songs. 2nd edition, SMU Press, Bk (1976/1950), p112 [1938] (Went Out A-Sparking/Sparkin')
Sands, Mary. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians II, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 6/# 75A [1916/08/05] (If You Want to Go A-Courting)
Wilson, Coral Almy. Randolph, Vance / Ozark Folksongs. Volume III, Humorous & Play-Party ..., Univ. of Missouri, Bk (1980/1946), p223/#466 [1929/07/17] (Old Leather Bonnet)
RECORDING INFO Corn Bread, Molasses and Sassafras Tea:
Rm - Cotton Eyed Joe - II
ALT TITLE: Cornbread 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea
Carter, June (Cornbread 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea)
Freight Hoppers. Where'd You Come From, Where'd You Go?, Rounder 0403, CD (1996), trk# 10 (Cornbread, Molasses and Sassafras Tea)
Gellert, Dan; and Shoofly. Forked Deer, Marimac 9000, Cas (1986), trk# A.05b
Harold and Abe. Cornbred, Molasses and Sassafras Tea, Heritage (Galax) 023, LP (1978), trk# 3
Lilly Brothers And Don Stover; Cornbread and 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea
Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys; Cornbread and 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea
CLOSELY RELATED TO: "Cornbread, Molasses and Sassafras Tea"
OTHER NAMES: West Virginia Gals/West Virginia Boys/If You Want to Go A-Courtin'/When You Go A-Courtin'/Come Girls, Come/Hello Girls/ Kansas Boys/Askansas Sheik/Don't Marry the Mormon Boys/Missouri Boys/Poor Tuckahoe/California Boys/East Virginia Girls/Mississippi Gals/The Mormon Boys
SOURCES: Kuntz; Brown; Mudcat; Sarah McQuaid;
PRINT SOURCES: Belden, pp. 426-428, "Texan Boys" (1 text plus a fragment probably not part of this song)
Randolph 342, "The Arkansas Boys" (3 texts, 2 tunes); also (perhaps with some mixture) 466, "The Old Leather Bonnet" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 277-278, "The Arkansas Boys" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 342A)
BrownIII 328, "The Carolina Crew" (1 fragment, thought by the editors to be this song); 336, "If You Want to Go A-Courtin'" (1 text, clearly mixed; the first three stanzas are this song, the next four something completely unrelated about a fight and a very bad meal)
Sandburg, pp. 128-129, "Hello, Girls"; "Kansas Boys" (2 texts, 1 tune)
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 95, "The Hunter's Song" (1 fragment)
Lomax-FSUSA 11, "When You Go A-Courtin'"; 12, "The Texian Boys" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Fife-Cowboy/West 9, "Johnny Cake" (4 texts, 1 tune, though the "B" text is clearly "Little Fight in Mexico" and the "C" text is also quite distinct)
LPound-ABS, 81, pp. 175-176, "Cheyenne Boys" (1 text)
JHCox 58, "The Tucky Ho Crew" (1 text -- a very mixed version which is only partly this song, but the rest doesn't look like anything I know. It may be a conflation with an otherwise lost ballad)
SharpAp 75, "If You Want to Go A-courting" (4 texts, 4 tunes)
Silber-FSWB, p. 173, "Kansas Boys" (1 text)
DT, WHNCORT1* WHNCORT2* WHNCORT3* WHNCORT4* WHNCORT5*
ADDITIONAL: Fred W. Allsopp, Folklore of Romantic Arkansas, Volume II (1931), p. 207, "The Old Leather Bonnet" (1 text, fairly full but missing the opening verse)
NOTES Cornbread, 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea: "Cornbread, 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea" is part of a large related group of a songs in which the girls are warned about courting with a certain group of boys (i.e. Kansas Boys). Pee Wee king had a hit with the song in 1949 and it was in the Carter Sister's (June Carter Cash) repertoire. It's a rewrite of "When You Go A-Courtin'," which is the popular title in early country music. The songs are of minstrel origin dating back to the 1841 song, "De Free *Man." The original sheet music, available at American Memory, gives the first verse as:
Come all you Virginia gals and listen to my noise
Neber do you wed wid de Carolina boys,
For if dat you do your portion it will be
Corn cake and *hominy and Jango lango tea. [*originally "harmony"]
It has been passed down in various forms and a myriad of titles including West Virginia Gals/West Virginia Boys/If You Want to Go A-Courtin'/When You Go A-Courtin'/Come Girls, Come/Hello Girls/ Kansas Boys/Askansas Sheik/Don't Marry the Mormon Boys/
Missouri Boys/Poor Tuckahoe.
Sharp collected his version from Mary Sands in 1916; first verse:
1. If you want to go a-courtin' I'll tell you where to go,
Just down yonder, just down below.
The old man, the old woman gone from home,
The girls all *married and their heads not combed.
The girls all married and their heads not combed. [*mad]
Mead separates the songs into two groups "When You go A-Courting" and "Come Along, Girls."
In their book Songs of the Great American West (1995), Irwin Silber and Earl Robinson describe how the song made the rounds of the country:
In the Ozarks, they told the Tennessee girls not to marry the Arkansas boys, while the Arkansas girls were similarly warned against the Missouri boys, and Louisiana girls were advised to guard against the Texas clan.... The song traveled to Wyoming, where young ladies were urged to scorn the Cheyenne boys, and out near the Great Salt Lake, the disciples of Brigham Young fashioned their own wry parody on themselves:
Come, girls, come, and listen to my noise,
Don’t you marry the Mormon boys,
For if you do, your fortune it will be,
Johnnycakes and babies are all you’ll see.
West Virginia Gals was first recorded by this title in 1928 by Al Hopkins and his Buckle Busters. Fiddler Henry Reed recorded the tune which Alan Jabbour titled West Virginia Gals, because Reed couldn't remember the name. Jabbour gives alternative titles as "West Virginia Girls" and "If You Want to Go A-Courting." Reed's version- Key: A; Meter: 4/4; Strains: 2 (high-low, 4-4); Rendition: 2-1r-2; Phrase Structure: AAAB QRQ'B' (abab abcd qrst qr'c'd'); Compass: 15
Here are Jabbour's notes: The tune appears to be an instrumental version of a song known in older Appalachian tradition (see Sharp, "English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians", vol. 2, 6, #75-A, "If You Want to Go A-Courting") and recorded on early hillbilly records. Though Henry Reed gave the tune no title, the Hollow Rock String Band recorded it as "West Virginia Gals" (Rounder 0024), the title which is adopted here. The song typically repeats the final phrase, making a five-phrase tune. The high strain of the fiddle tune corresponds to the song, though it eliminates the repeated fourth phrase, and the low strain is a kind of arpeggiated filler.
West Virginia Boys (Sarah McQuaid): I learned this song from my mother. It’s part of a grand tradition of songs in which girls are strongly advised against consorting with young men from the neighbouring parish, county, state or whatever. The miserable repast the prospective brides are told to expect varies from “Johnny cake and venison” (which doesn’t sound all that bad!) to “hoecake and hominy”, “cornbread and buttermilk” and “cornbread and bacon”.
Come on all you Virginia gals and listen to my noise
Don’t you mess around with West Virginia boys
If’n you do your ration will be
Cornbread, molasses and sassafras tea
If You Want To Go A-Courting- THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE;Vol. XXIV. —JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1911— No. XCIII
FOLK-SONG AND FOLK-POETRY AS FOUND IN THE SECULAR SONGS OF THE SOUTHERN NEGROES BY HOWARD W. ODUM 37. IF YOU WANT TO GO A COURTIN' More original and satisfying in sentiment and rhyme and sensuous pictures is the following:
If you want to go a courtin', I sho' you where to go,
Right down yonder in de house below.
Clothes all dirty an' ain't got no broom,
Ole dirty clothes all hangin' in de room.
Ask'd me to table, thought I'd take a seat,
First thing I saw was big chunk o' meat.
Big as my head, hard as a maul,
Ash-cake, corn-bread, bran an' all.
Cornbread and 'Lasses and Sassafras Tea (June Carter)
Carter Sisters:
Come along girls, a listen to my noise
Don’t go marrying no Arkansas boy
Marry a fellow from Tennessee
Eat cornbread and ‘lasses and sassafras tea
Eat cornbread and ‘lasses and sassafras tea
Traveled all over this whole wide world
Eat a lot of cooking from a lot of pretty girls
There ain’t nothing like Tennessee
Eating cornbread and ‘lasses and sassafras tea
Eating cornbread and ‘lasses and sassafras tea
Grandpa Grump lived on a hill
He ain’t never died and I guess he never will
The neighbors all say he’s passed 93
The old man’s happy as he can be
Eating cornbread and ‘lasses and sassafras tea
Old Uncle Ned on his dying bed
They gathered all around and here’s what he said
My last request just let it be
Cornbread, molasses, sassafras tea
Cornbread, molasses, sassafras tea
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