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Rock about My Saro Jane/
Old-Time Song and Breakdown;
ARTIST: Louis Gottlieb/Kingston Trio
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: May 7, 1927 recording by Macon; Learned by Macon from stevedores on the Cumberland River in the 1880's [Charles Wolfe].
RECORDING INFO: Saro Jane [Me II-Z18]
Lomax, John A. & Alan Lomax / Folk Song USA, Signet, Sof (1966/1947), # 47 (Rock About My Saro Jane)
Lynn, Frank (ed.) / Songs for Swinging Housemothers, Fearon, Sof (1963/1961), p291
Sing Out Reprints, Sing Out, Sof (1959), 6, p20 (Rock About My Saro Jane)
Leisy, James F. (ed.) / Folk Song Abecedary, Bonanza, Bk (1966), p280 (Rock About My Saro Jane)
Ferretti, Silvio. Banjo Newsletter, BNL, Ser (1973-), 1981/02,p 8
Ginandes, Shep. Dogwood Soup, Pathways of Sound POS 1023, LP (196?), trk# B.06
Jackson, Bill. Steamboat Coming, National Geographic Soc. 07787, LP (1976), trk# 14 (Rock About My Saro Jane)
Kingston Trio. Kingston Trio, Capitol T 0996, LP (1958), trk# 7
Macon, Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave Macon. Early Recordings, County 521, LP (197?), trk# 11 [1927/05/07] (Rock About My Saro Jane)
Macon, Uncle Dave. Wolfe, Charles K.(ed.) / Folk Songs of Middle Tennessee. George Boswell, Univ. Tennesse, Sof (1997), p103/# 63 [1950/05/28] (Captain Tom Ryman)
Macon, Uncle Dave. Lomax, Alan / Folksongs of North America, Doubleday Dolphin, Sof (1975/1960), p528/#277 (Rock About My Saro Jane)
Macon, Uncle Dave; & the/his Fruit Jar Drinkers. Classic Sides 1924-1938, JSP 7729A-D, CD( (2004), trk# B.11 [1927/05/07] (Rock About My Saro Jane)
New Lost City Ramblers. Remembrance of Things to Come, Folkways FTS 31035, LP (1973/1966), trk# 8 (Rock About My Saro Jane)
Nye, Hermes. Asch, Moses (ed.) / 124 Folk Songs as Sung and Recorded on Folkways Reco, Robbins, Fol (1965), p 99
Odetta. My Eyes Have Seen, Vanguard VRS-9059, LP (1960), trk# B.03
Red Clay Ramblers. Rambler, Sugar Hill SH-C-3798, Cas (1992), trk# 4
Smiley, Red; and the Bluegrass Cut-Ups. 20 Old Time Favorites, Rural Rhythm RC-211, Cas (1991), trk# A.05 (Rock About My Saro Jane)
RELATED TO: Saro
OTHER NAMES: Saro Jane;
SOURCES: Rec.Music; Mudcat; Lomax-FSUSA 47, "Rock About My Saro Jane" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax- FSNA 277, "Rock About, My Saro Jane" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-SoFolklr, p. 747, "Rock About, My Saro Jane" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 92, "Rock About My Saro Jane" (1 text)
NOTES: The song is identified with Uncle Dave Macon, who collected and first recorded the song on May 7, 1927. According to Charles Wolfe, Macon learned the song from stevedores on the Cumberland River in the 1880's.
In a further instance of historical irony, Uncle Dave liked to sing a song about the builder of the Ryman Auditorium, riverboat man Tom Ryman. The song, entitled 'Cap'n Tom Ryman', was collected from Macon by folklorist George Boswell for his then-unpublished collection of Tennessee folk songs. Uncle Dave never commercially recorded it, though he did record a related version as the widely known 'Rock About My Saro Jane'. Boswell's text reads as follows:
Cap'n Tom Ryman was a steamboat man,
But Sam Jones sent him to the heavenly land,
Oh, sail away
Oh, there's nothing to do but to sit down and sing
Oh, rockabout my Saro Jane, oh rockabout my Saro Jane,
Oh, rockabout my Saro Jane
Oh, rockabout my Saro Jane
Oh, rockabout my Saro Jane
Oh, there's nothing to do but to sit down and sing
Oh, rockabout my Saro Jane
Engine give a *scratch and the whistle gave a squall
The engineer going to a hole in the wall,
Oh, Saro Jane
There's nothing to do but to sit down and sing
Oh, rockabout my Saro Jane
*Usually lyrics are: crack
Uncle Dave, when asked about this song, gave this history to Boswell:
"Now that tabernacle what was built down there where we play, Rev'rend Sam Jones converted Cap'n Tom Ryman. He had six steamboats on the Cumberland River and you ought to have seen that wharf just lined with horses and mules and wagons hauling freight to those boats and bringing it back. And Sam Jones preached the low country to him so straight he took the *black stevedores all down there Monday morning and bought all that whiskey and poured it in the river. Took them card tables and built a bonfire and burned 'em up. Clean up. *Stevedores started this song."
The song would make an interesting case study in Uncle Dave's use of traditional material in his music. As with many of his pieces, the 'core' of the song seems borrowed from black tradition, as he always acknowledged. The chorus of 'Saro Jane' might have referred to a steamboat originally, and the piece could have been a form of work song. Yet the couplet at the beginning of each stanza seems to have been interchangeable, like a blues stanza.
On Macon's 1927 recording of 'Rock About My Saro Jane' (Vocalion 5152), he sings words identical to those above except that he does not include the 'Cap'n Tom Ryman' stanza and does include several other stanzas which seem to have little in common with one another. Although Uncle Dave probably did sing the 'Tom Ryman' couplet earlier than 1950, when Boswell collected it, he probably used it simply as a random stanza in 'Rock About My Saro Jane'. But, after he saw the Ryman Auditorium become the home of the Opry, he might have shifted the emphasis of the song to the more topical subject of Tom Ryman. Macon was notorious for mixing parts of different songs and 'recomposing' them to suit himself, and some day some poor folklorist is going to ruin his liver trying to track them all down. [Charles K. Wolfe 'A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry, Appendix I to Chapter 6, 'Take It Away, Uncle Dave', The Country Music Foundation Press 1999, pp 116-117.]
[Bob Coltman] Uncle Dave Macon has a line in his riverboatman's ditty Rock About My Saro Jane:
Engine give a crack and the whistle give a squall
The engineer going to a hole in the wall,
Oh, Saro Jane
I think I have seen the Hole in the Wall explained as a place where you get liquor, perhaps the name of a dive. But also at one point people got their liquor in takeout fashion, bringing a "can" -- a metal pitcher or tankard -- to the source of the stuff. They took their cans down the street to be filled by measure, just as we go to the liquor store and get a pint or a fifth. They may originally have paid through a shuttered hole in the wall just as we today get takeout through a takeout window, without having to go inside the building.
The liquor dispenser, often a barrel with a tap, was sometimes called a "growler" because it made a growling noise when the tap was running.
The song entered teh bluegrass tradition inthe 1950s an was recorded by the Kingston Trio and also Flatt & Scruggs. It has also been adapted sometimes with different floating lyrics by string bands.
Here are the lyrics to Rock about My Saro Jane from Kingston Trio:
ROCK ABOUT MY SARO JANE
Louis Gottlieb/Kingston Trio
Rock-a-bout, rock-a-bout, rock-a-bout.
Chorus: Come on and rock-about my Saro Jane.
Come on and rock-about my Saro Jane.
Oh, there's nothing to do but to sit down and sing
And rock-about my Saro Jane.
I've got a wife and five little children.
Believe I'll take a trip on the big Macmillan.
Oh, Saro Jane.
A guy like me don't have no home.
I make my livin' on my shoulder bone.
Oh, Sara Jane.
Oh, Saro Jane. Oh, Saro Jane.
(Chorus)
Woke up this mornin' feeling mighty mean,
thinkin' 'bout my good gal in New Orleans.
Oh, Saro Jane.
Fireman, keep those boilers hot.
I want to reach town by six o'clock.
Oh, Saro Jane.
Oh, Saro Jane. Oh, Saro Jane.
(Chorus)
Back's getting' tired and shoulder's gettin' sore.
Each sack is bigger than the one before.
Oh, Saro Jane.
A rock in my stomach and a watchin' my head.
Gettin' superstitious 'bout my pork and bread.
Oh, Saro Jane.
Oh, Saro Jane. Oh, Saro Jane.
(Chorus)
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