Sugar Baby (Red Rocking Chair; Red Apple Juice)
DESCRIPTION: "Got no sugar baby now...got no use for your red rocking chair...who'll rock the cradle, who'll sing the song...all I can do, fuss, eat, sleep with you/send you to your mama next payday" -- floating verses all.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Dock Boggs)
KEYWORDS: marriage nonballad floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Lunsford/Stringfield-30And1FolkSongsFromSouthernMountains, p. 50, "Red Apple Juice" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jones-MinstrelOfTheAppalachians-Bascom-Lamar-Lunsford, p. 234, "Red Apple Juice" (1 text, 1 tune); also p. 243,"Little Turtle Dove" (1 text, 1 tune, a composite of floating verses, some of which perhaps belong here)
Dunson/Raim/Asch-AnthologyOfAmericanFolkMusic, p. 82 "Sugar Baby" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 34, "Red Rocking Chair" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 175, "Red Apple Juice" (1 text)
Roud #7695
RECORDINGS:
Clarence Ashley, Clint Howard et al, "Honey Babe Blues" (on Ashley02, WatsonAshley01)
Dock Boggs, "Sugar Baby" (Brunswick 118B, 1927; on AAFM3) (on Boggs2, BoggsCD1, CloseHomeMS)
Roscoe Holcomb, "Got No Honey Baby Now (Honey Babe Blues)" (on Holcomb2)
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, "Little Turtle Dove" (1928; on BLLunsford01; a composite of all sorts of floating verses, a few of which may be from here)
Charlie Monroe & his Kentucky Pardners, "Red Rocking Chair" (RCA Victor 21-0145, 1949)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Red Rocking Chair" (on NLCR03)
Frank Proffitt, "Got No Sugar Baby Now" (on FProffitt01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Pay Day" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Rain and Snow" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Fare You Well, My Own True Love (The Storms Are on the Ocean, The False True Lover, The True Lover's Farewell, Red Rosy Bush, Turtle Dove)" (floating lyrics)
NOTES [22 words]: This is a white blues, but it powerfully resembles an improvised African-American blues lyric, composed mostly of floating verses. -PJS
Last updated in version 4.4
File: ADR82
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