De Boatman Dance

DESCRIPTION: A minstrel song about a boatman's life, observing that there is no one like a boatman. "O dance, de boatman, dance all night 'till broad daylight, And go home wid de gals in de morning. Hi, ho, de boatman row, Floating down de ribber on de Ohio"
AUTHOR: Daniel Decatur Emmett
EARLIEST DATE: before 1835 (broadside, Bodleian Firth c.22(54)), but reportedly copyrighted 1843
KEYWORDS: dancing river minstrel ship sailor
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE) Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 492-493, "Dance the Boatman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig/Duncan3 484, Greig/Duncan8 Addenda, "The Boatman's Dance" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 223, "Hi You Boat Row" (1 fragment)
Sulzer-TwentyFiveKentuckyFolkBallads, p. 13, "Dance, Boadman, Dance" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-TreasuryMississippiRiverFolklore, p. 566, "De Boatman Dance" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scott-EnglishSongBook, pp. 78-79, "De Boatmen's Dance" (1 text, 1 tune)
Heart-Songs, pp. 76-77, "De Boatmen's Dance" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 39, "Boatman's Dance" (1 text)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 175, 346, 347, 348, 432, 502-509, "Boatmen"/"Oh, the Boatmen Dance" (notes, with 3 texts on pp. 507-509, dramatically altered; bibliography on pp. 699-701)
OneTuneMore, p. 37, "Mississippi Boatman's Song" (1 text, 1 tune, altered)
DT, BOATDANC*
ADDITIONAL: Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). "Dance the Boatman Dance" is in Part 1, 7/14/1917.
Roud #5898
RECORDINGS:
Elizabeth Cotten, "Boatman Dance" (on Cotten02)
Mick Moloney, "The Boatman's Dance" (on MoloneyShenachieFarFromShamrockShore)
Byrd Moore & his Hot Shots, "Boatman's Dance" (Gennett, unissued, 1930)
Eleazar Tillet, "Come Love Come" (on USWarnerColl01) [a true mess; the first verse is "Nancy Till", the chorus is "Come, Love, Come, the Boat Lies Low," and it uses part of "De Boatman Dance" as a bridge.)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.22(54), "The Boatman of de Ohio" ("De boatman dance, de boatman sing"), G. Walker (Durham), 1797-1834; also Firth b.25(239), "Dance de Boatmen"; Harding B 15(81b), Harding B 11(352), Firth b.28(38) View 1 of 2 [almost entirely illegible], "[De] Boatman Dance"; Firth b.25(595/596) View 1 of 2, "The Boatmen Dance"; Harding B 11(1117), "Boatman's Dance"
LOCSheet, sm1844 390930, "De Boatman Dance, Ethiopian Ballad," C. G. Christman (New York), 1844 ["by Philip Ernst"]; also sm1848 441710, "De Boatmen's Dance" (tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Seeing the Elephant (When I Left the States for Gold)" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
Seeing the Elephant (When I Left the States for Gold) (File: Beld347)
Cherry Creek Emigrant's Song (File: CAFS590A)
De Possum's Tree ("Oh hab you heard dat possum's case") (The National Clay Minstrel and True Whig's Pocket Companion for the Presidential Canvass of 1844 (available on Google Books), p. 19)
The Shaker Dance (Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection, p. 58)
Our Boatman ("Our Boatman is a Union man, Come, find a better if you can") (Garfield and Arthur Campaign Song Book 1880, p. 3)
Oh! Boatman Haste (words by George Pope Morris, 1843; cf. Jon W. Finson, _The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song_, Oxford University Press, 1994, p.31)
Nigga's Descriotion of Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet ("Oh! She doth make the torch burn bright, Her beauty hands on the cheek of night") (NegroMelodiesNo5-OldZipCoon, p. 34)
NOTES [290 words]: Jon W. Finson, The Voices That Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-Century American Popular Song, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 181, says that the melody of this piece may derive from a fiddle tune, "Ohio River," which was credited to George Knauff and supposedly composed 1839. This would precede the copyright of "De Boatman Dance" but follow what is said to be the oldest broadside, so there something of an historical tangle to be resolved in that case.
The version in Heart-Songs credits this to "Dan D. Smith," which is an interesting tangle of names all by itself. - RBW
I thought this a strange song for Mick Moloney to choose as the first track on MoloneyShenachieFarFromShamrockShore. In the liner notes he writes, "The song was written in 1843 by Dan Emmet (1815-1904), one of the most famous Irish American performers in minstelsy. More likely than not, he adapted it from a popular older African American song which was sung near his home in Mount Vernon, Ohio in the 1830s by African American river boatmen on the Ohio River. ... Emmet ... was an outstanding singer and banjo and fiddle player who formed the Virginia Minstrels and Frank Brower, Dick Pelham and Billy Whitlock in the early 1840s and toured Britain and Ireland in the summer of 1843. In this tour, Emmet introduced the 5-string banjo formally to Ireland for the first time along with fellow Irish American Joel Sweeney, the most famous banjo player of the day, who guested with the group for the tour. 'The Boatman Dance' was one of the staples of their repertoire featuring a classic song and dance minstrel routine -- all the Virgfinia minstrels were accomplished dancers whose style was drawn from an amalgam of African, English and Irish influences." - BS
Last updated in version 7.1
File: BMRF566

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