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Limber Jim (See Also: Buckeye Jim)
Traditional Oldtime Breakdown and Song;
ARTIST: Lafcadio Hearn (1876) from B.A. Botkin, ed., A Treasury of Mississippi Foklore, Bonanza, 1978, pp. 593-595; Botkin quotes a whole chapter ("Cincinnati Levee Life and Songs", original title being "Songs of the Roustabouts") from Lafcadio Hearn's An American Miscellany, vol. 1 (1924); the chapter first appeared as an article in The [Cincinnati, Ohio] Commercial, March 17, 1876. This song is in it (without music).
Harold Courlander quotes several verses of the same version from Hearn's "American Sketches" in Selected Writings of Lafcadio Hearn (Negro Folk Music, U.S.A., Columbia University Press, 1963, pp. 120-121; without music)
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: Mid 1800’s (1876- Hearns)
OTHER NAMES: “Buck-eye Jim,” “Jim Along Josie,” “Shiloh” “Black Them Boots”
RELATED TO: “Goodbye Liza Jane/Liza Jane” songs; “Johnny Fool/Kitty Alone” songs “Kemo Kimo/Sing Song Kitty” songs;
ORGINATES FROM: Froggie Went a Courtin’/ Martin and His Man Songs:
From “Froggy Went A Coutin’” to “Keemo Kimo” “Sing Song Kitty (Won't You Ki-Me-O);” “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O;” “Kyman-I-Doe;” “Beaver Creek.”
From “Martin and His Man” to “Kitty Alone;” “Who's the Fool Now?,” “Old Blind Drunk John,” “Fooba-Wooba John,” “Johnny Fool,” “Kitty and I.”
SOURCES: Buck-eye Jim: (Fletcher Collins) Alamance Play-Party Songs And Singing Games (1940). (Peggy Seeger )The Five String Banjo - American Folk Styles; 1960. Children Of The Levee, published by the University of Kentucky Press in 1957. It is a reprint of the original articles written by Hearn in 1874-1877 for the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati Commercial also in B.A. Botkin, ed., A Treasury of Mississippi Foklore, Bonanza, 1978, pp. 593-595. White:"Jim Aong Josey," p. 286 of "Negro Singers Own Book," ca. 1846 (Ref. in White, p. 242); (Lomax)-FSUSA 1, "Buckeye Jim," Silber-FSWB, p. 388, "Buckeye Jim"; Fireside Book Of Favorite American Songs p. 277, 1952 by Simon and Schuster "Buckeye Jim"(Collins Version) John and Alan Lomax were the first ones to print "Buckeye Jim" in Folk Song U.S.A., in 1947. They gave it pride of place by making it the first song in their book. They got it from Burl Ives who published "Buckeye Jim" in 1962 in his Song In America. He recorded it on his "Little White Duck" album. Folk Songs North America Sings: A Source Book For All Teachers by Richard Johnston (Toronto: E.C.Kerby, c 1984) p.122. He has the first two verses from the version listed above. His source is "Appalachian Folk Song" and he got this song from: JOHNSTON, Richard et al - Songs For Today! Vol. V - Waterloo Music Co. Ltd., Waterloo, Ontario, 1958. Shiloh/Black Them Boots: Vance Randolph, in his OZARK FOLKSONGS (Vol ?, p. 359) Shiloh/Black Them Boots: The Missouri Play-Party" by Mrs. L.D.Ames, Vol. 24 of the AMERICAN FOLKLORE SOCIETY's bulletin;
SOURCE/RECORDING INFO: Seven Up
One Thousand Fiddle Tunes, Cole, Fol (1940), p 35
Greenway, John / American Folksongs of Protest, Perpetua, Sof (1960/1953), p 83 (Nigger and the White Man)
Willhite, Rance. Thede, Marion (ed.) / The Fiddle Book, Oak, Bk (1967), p 68 [1930s] (Nigger and the White Man)
RECORDING INFO- LIMBER JIM: Burle Ives-"Little White Duck"; Anne Muir; Folk-Legacy album A Water Over Stone, with Gordon Bok and Ed Trickett. 1980. Collins did record this song and it can be heard at the Library of Congress in the Folklife Reading Room, and "copies can be made through the Library's Recording Laboratory, but that can be a rather expensive process." (reference specialist LOC). English, Logan. American Folk Ballads, Monitor MF 388, LP (196?), cut#A.05 (Buck-Eye Jim); Henske, Judy. High Flying Bird, Elektra EKS 7241, LP (1963), cut#A.02; Stracke, Win. Folk Songs for the Young, Golden Records, LP (1962), cut#A.06 (Buck-Eye Jim)
NOTES ON LIMBER JIM: The Limber Jim Songs originated from various 1800 minstrel song adaptations of the “Froggie Went a Courting/Martin Said To his Man” songs including the “Kemo Kimo” songs, “Kitty Alone” songs and “Goodbye Liza Jane” songs.
Some titles of the “Kemo Kimo” songs are “Keemo Kimo” “Sing Song Kitty (Won't You Ki-Me-O);” “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O;” “Kyman-I-Doe;” and “Beaver Creek” which are variants of the old “Froggie Went Courting” songs.
Here are some excerpts from two “Kemo Kimo” songs:
King Kong Kitchee:
Ki-mo, kemo, ki-mo, kee
Way down yonder in a holler tree
An owl and a bat and a bumblebee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
Sing Song Kitty:
Way down yonder and not far off,
Sing song kitty can’t ya kime-e-o.
A jaybird died with the whoppin’ cough,
Sing song kitty can’t ya kime-e-o.
Way down yonder on Beaver Creek,
Sing song kitty can ya kime-e-o.
The gals all grow to be six feet,
Sing song kitty can ya kime-e-o.
The Limber Jim Songs are also related to the “Kitty Alone” songs which are variants from the “Martin Said to his Man” and “Froggie Went a Courting” songs. “Limber Jim” relates to the “Martin Said to his Man” branch of “Kitty Alone.” In a long note on this song, Professor G. L. Kittredge shows that the “Old Blind Drunk John” songs derive from “a famous old English song, ‘Martin Said to His Man,’ and entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1588.” It is a lying song—“I saw a louse run a mouse.... I saw a squirrel run a deer.... I saw a flea kick a tree..., in the middle of the sea.” One Scottish version cited says, “Four and twenty Hilandmen chasing a snail,” etc. Other names for “Kitty Alone” are “Who's the Fool Now?,” “Old Blind Drunk John,” “Johnny Fool,” and “Fooba-Wooba John.”
Here's an example of the Martin Said to His Man- Kitty Alone:
Saw a crow a-flying low
Kitty alone, kitty alone.
Saw a crow a-flying low,
Kitty alone, alone.
Saw a crow a-flying low
And a cat a-spinnin' tow.
Rock-a-bye baby bye, rock-a-bye baby bye.
There are also Froggie variants that introduce the “weave and spin” line commonly found in Limber Jim/Buck-eye Jim.
FROGGIE: From Mrs. Ford Kent of New York
A frog he would a-wooing go
A-too-re-lal, a-too-re-lal,
He went into Miss Mouse's hall
And there he loudly rapped and called,
He said, Miss Mouse, are you within?
She said, I sit and spin.
BUCK-EYE JIM:
Chorus: Buck-eyed Jim, you can't go
Go weave and spin, you can't go
Buck-eyed Jim
From Children Of The Levee, published by the University of Kentucky Press in 1957. It is a reprint of the original articles written by Lafcadio Hearn in 1874-1877 for the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati Commercial. Hearn: "But the most famous songs in vogue among the roustabouts is "Limber Jim," or "Shiloh." Very few know it all by heart, which is not wonderful when we consider that it requires something like twenty minutes to sing "Limber Jim" from beginning to end, and that the whole song, if printed in full, would fill two columns of the commercial! The only person in the city who can sing the song through, we believe, is a colored laborer living near Sixth and Culvert streets, who "run on the river" for years, and acquired so much of a reputation by singing "Limber Jim," that he has been nicknamed after the mythical individual aforesaid, and is now known by no other name.
He keeps a little resort in Bucktown, which is known as "Limber Jim's," and has a fair reputation for one dwelling in that locality. Jim very good-naturedly sang the song for us a few nights ago, and we took down some of the most striking verses for the benefit of our readers. The air is wonderfully quick and lively, and the chorus is quite exciting. The leading singer sings the whole song, excepting the chorus, "Shiloh," which dissyllable is generally chanted by twenty or thirty voices of abysmal depth at the same time with a sound like the roar of twenty Chinese gongs struck with a tremendous force and precision. A great part of "Limber Jim" is very profane, and some of it is not quite fit to print. We can give only about one-tenth part of it.(!) The chorus is frequently accompanied with that wonderfully rapid slapping of thighs and hips known as "patting Juba." Children Of The Levee Pages 70-71.
Here’s an excerpt of Limber Jim from Hearns, March 17, 1876:
Chorus: Limber Jim,
[All.] Shiloh!
Talk it agin,
[All.] Shiloh!
Walk back in love,
[All.] Shiloh!
You turtle-dove,
[All.] Shiloh!
Went down the ribber, couldn't get across;
Hopped on a rebel louse; thought 'twas a hoss,
Oh, lor', gals, 't ain't no lie,
Lice in Camp Chase big enough to cry,--
Bridle up a rat, sir; saddle up a cat,
Please han' me down my Leghorn hat,
Went to see widow; widow warn't home;
Saw to her daughter--she geve me honeycomb.
Jay-bird sittin' on a swinging limb,
Winked at me an' I winked at him.
Up with a rock an' struck him on the shin,
G-d d--n yer soul, don’t wink again. (Masato)
The origin of the closely related “Buckeye Jim” song is obscure. According to the Library of Congress, Fletcher Collins collected "Buckeye Jim" (aka "Limber Jim") from Mrs. J.U. (Patty) Newman in 1939, at Elon College, in North Carolina, which is the first documented version.
The “Limber Jim” group of songs includes “Buck-eye Jim” and “Shiloh”. There are connections with other fiddle tunes such as “Seven Up”. The “Seven Up,” “Charlotte Town is Burning Down,” “Shiloh,” and “Goin’ Down to Cairo” are all related to the large body of “Goodbye Liza Jane” songs.
The chorus is frequently accompanied with that wonderfully rapid slapping of thighs and hips known as "patting Juba." "Patting Juba" in the antebellum days is in Dena J. Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals (University of Illinois, 1977, pp. 141-144).
This fiddle tune has floater verses and many variants. There are two distinct versions: the “Way Up/Down Yonder” versions (see: Jim Along Josie), and the “Weave and Spin” (Limber Jim) versions. There are also versions that include “Shiloh” which appears to be a slang word for a type of dance or dance step in connection with the tune.
NOTES on Seven Up
G Major. Standard tuning. AABB. American, Reel.
'Seven Up' was a card game in which a total of seven points was game. It is a variant of All-Fours or Old Sledge. The lyrics are part of teh Limber Jim family and are of minstrel origin.
Other names include “Cale Smith’s Pastime,” “Fair and Forty,” "Black Man and the White Man.” Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; pg. 35. Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, 1883.
Paul Oliver in his 'Songsters and Saints' Cambridge Uni Press p105 gives the following as another widely collected stanza [Hearne, Odum & Johnson, Talley, White]:
*Black man and the white man playing seven-up
Black man won the money scared to pick it up
Balck man made the motion, the white man fell
Black man grab the money and he run like hell.
Also from Odum:
*Black man plant the cotton
Black man pick it up
White man pockets money
Black man does without
Seven up lyrics:
Ain't it hard to be a *Black Man
The second song which is now well known is composed of two
popular rhymes about the negro and the white man, together with
other verses composed to make an agreeable song and to make suitable
rhymes and combinations. The effort to make a complete song is
easily felt as one reads the words. The tune may be one that the
singer happens to think of; it matters little which he chooses. The
theme "Ain't it Hard?" is one that is common in negro life and song.
He sings, —
"Ain't it hard, ain't it hard,
Ain't it hard to be a black man, black man, black man?
Ain't it hard, ain't it hard,
For you can't git yo' money when it's due.
"Well, it make no difference,
How you make out yo' time;
White man sho' bring a
Black man out behin'.
"Black man an' white man
Playin' seven-ups;
Black man win de money—
Skeered to pick 'em up.
"If a black man git 'rested,
An' can't pay his fine,
They sho' send him out
To the county gang.
"A black man went to a white man,
An' asked him for work;
White man told black man,
'Yes, git out o' yo' shirt.'
"Black man got out o' his shirt
An' went to work;
When pay-day come,
White man say he ain't work 'nuf.
"If you work all the week,
An' work all the time,
White man sho' to bring
Black man out behin'."
The above song illustrates the method of making song out of rhymes,
fragments, sayings, and improvised rhymes. The song as heard in
its present form was collected in Newton County, Georgia. In a negro
school in Mississippi, at a Friday afternoon "speaking," one of the
children recited for a "speech" the stanza "Black man an' white man
I got a wife an' a sweetheart, too, Sugar Babe (repeat twice)
My wife don't love me but my sweetheart do, Sugar Babe.
Black man an' de white man playin' seven-up, Sugar Babe (repeat)
Black man win de money, but afraid to pick it up, Sugar Babe.
Lomax JAL '39 collecting trip. Livingston, Alabama:
Sim Tartt and group from Boyd community-- May 29, 1939
Mrs. Tartt had told us about the Tartt family of Negroes that lived in the Boyd, Alabama community. She had heard the group sing together with beautiful effect. Because of the rain she thought they would not be working in the field and drove the seventeen miles or more to their farm home to bring them in to sing. She was told at their house that "Sim an' them is huntin' fish". Mrs. Tartt walked through the mud down to the river, calling as she went, to locate them the sooner. Finally she heard a startled whisper, "Dat's Miss Ruby Callin'! Hear her? Reckin what she want?" Then Mrs. Tartt, "Sim, Mandy, you heard me. Where are you?" They came forth, bare-footed and thinly clad; for they really had been fish-hunting. The high water, receding, had left live fish far up on the bank. These the Negroes were spearing and catching with bare hands. But at "Miss Ruby"'s bidding, they left the river, hastily made themselves reddy and were on their way. Every foot of the long, winding, still-muddy road they sang spirituals, some of them new even to Mrs. Tartt. who thought that she had exhausted their repertoire. Besides spirituals they recorded a few game songs too.
Here are the complete lyrics of “Seven up/Limber Jim” from Hearns:
*Black Man an' a white man playing seven-up,
White man played an ace; an' black man feared to take it up,
White man played ace an' black man played a nine,
White man died, an' black man went blind.
Limber Jim,
[All.] Shiloh!
Talk it agin,
[All.] Shiloh!
Walk back in love,
[All.] Shiloh!
You turtle-dove,
[All.] Shiloh!
Went down the ribber, couldn't get across;
Hopped on a rebel louse; thought 'twas a hoss,
Oh, lor', gals, 't ain't no lie,
Lice in Camp Chase big enough to cry,--
Bridle up a rat, sir; saddle up a cat,
Please han' me down my Leghorn hat,
Went to see widow; widow warn't home;
Saw to her daughter--she geve me honeycomb.
Jay-bird sittin' on a swinging limb,
Winked at me an' I winked at him.
Up with a rock an' struck him on the shin,
G-d d--n yer soul, don’t wink again.
Some folks says that a rebel can't steal,
I found twenty in my corn-fiel',
Sich pullin' of shucks an' tearin' of corn!--
Nebber saw the like since I was born.
John Morgan come to Danville and cut a mighty dash,
Las' time I saw him, he was under whip an' lash;
'Long come a rebel at a sweepin' pace,
Whar 're ye goin', Mr. Rebel? "I'm goin' to Camp Chase."
Way beyond de sun and de moon,
White gal tole me I were too soon.
White gal tole me I come too soon,
An' nigger gal called me an old damned fool.
Eighteen pennies hidden in a fence,
Cynthiana gals ain't got no sense;
Every time they go from home
Comb thar heads wid an ole jaw bone.
Had a little wife an' didn't inten' to keep her;
Showed her a flatboat an' sent her down de ribber;
Head like a fodder-shock, mouf like a shovel,
Put yerself wid yaller gal, put yerself in trubble.
I went down to Dinah's house, Dinah was in bed,
Hoisted de window an' poked out her head;
T'rowed, an' I hit her in de eyeball,--bim;
"Walk back, Mr. *Jim; don't do dat again."
Gambling man in de railroad line,
Saved my ace an' played my nine;
If you want to know my name,
My name's High-low-jack-in-the-game.
Limber Jim,
Shiloh!
Talk it agin,
Shiloh!
You dancing girl,
Shiloh!
Sure's you're born,
[All.] Shiloh!
Grease my heel with butter in the fat,
I can talk to Limber Jim better'n dat.
Limber Jim,
Shiloh!
Limber Jim,
Shiloh!
Walk back in love,
Shiloh!
My turtle dove,
[All.] Shiloh!
[Patting Juba]
And you can't go yonder,
Limber Jim!
And you can't go yonder,
Limber Jim!
And you can't go-oo-o!
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