A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

"Jenny Get Your Hoe Cake Done"

"Jenny Get Your Hoe Cake Done" (1840)
The Celebrated Banjo Song,
as sung with great Applause at the
Broadway Circus,
by
Joel Walker Sweeney, ca. 1810 - 1860

[Source: 020/003@Levy]

1.
De hen and chickens went to roost,
De hawk flew down and hit de goose
He hit de ole hen in de back
I really believe dam am a fac,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done my dear,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done.

2.
As I was gwain lond de road,
Past a stump dar wad a toad.
De tadpole winked at Pollewog's daughter,
And kick'd de bull frog plump in de water.
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done my dear,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done, love!

* * *

6.
Massa un Misse promise me
When dey died to set me free,
Now dey both are dead and gone,
Left ole Sambo [haeing?] out corn
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done my dear,
Oh, Jenny get de hoe cake done, love!


Sheet music (three pages of GIF files in the Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music collection of the Library of Congress. First page is pix of Sweeney (?) in blackface.
Covered as recently as 1978 by Grandpa Jones (on an album with "I'm My Own Grandpaw" and "Five String Banjo Boogie").

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About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.