Shinbone Alley (Stay a Little Longer, Long Time Ago)

DESCRIPTION: "You ought to see my blue-eyed Sally, She lives way down in shinbone alley, No number on the gate, no number on the door, Folks around here are gettin' mighty poor." Unrelated verses about southern life, disasters, prison, rising creeks, etc.
AUTHOR: unknown (pop version "Stay a Little Longer" by Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan)
EARLIEST DATE: 1946 (recording of "Stay a Little Longer" by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys); the "Long Time Ago" text is reported from 1865 (NegroMelodiesNo5-OldZipCoon)
KEYWORDS: home hardtimes poverty prison flood
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 422, "Shinbone Alley" (1 fragment)
NegroMelodiesNo5-OldZipCoon, pp. 14-15, "Long Time Ago" (1 text, possibly related to this)
MidwestFolklore, Frances Boshears, "Granddaddy Roberts," Volume 3, Number 3 (Fall 1953), p. 153, "(Fished all night, Fished a little longer" (1 text)
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Sources for "Stay All Night," the Bob Wills song (Roud #32099) written by Bob Willa and Tommy Duncan:
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 23, #2 (1974), p, 1, "Stay All Night" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #11769
RECORDINGS:
Sources for "Stay All Night," the Bob Wills song (Roud #32099) by Bob Willa and Tommy Duncan:
Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys, "Stay a Little Longer" (Columbia 37097, 1946)
NOTES [229 words]: The notes in Brown describe this as common, but cite only one possibly-traditional version (in Odum and Johnson). Roud #11769 has many, many versions, but often they don't have the "shinbone alley" verse and might be something different.
There is another problem: What is the relationship of this traditional song to Bob Wills's "Stay a Little Longer"? (A song which has been collected in the Ozarks but from a source clearly influenced by commercial recordings.) Brown's traditional collection came a few years after the Wills recording, but is significantly different -- some lyrics Wills didn't use, added chorus, etc. Similarly the MidwestFolklore fragment: printed a few years after Wills, doesn't mention Shinbone Alley, doesn't say "Stay all night," but looks very closely related.
On the other hand, the NegroMelodiesNo5-OldZipCoon text begins "As I was gwoin down Shine Bone Alley, Long time ago, To buy a bonnet for Miss Sally, Long time ago." That's clearly related to this family, but the rest of the song looks different. The joys of disjointed songs....
Paul Stamler thinks they're the same. I waver, since there are are few printed fragments which seem to predate Wills by many decades. Roud gives them separate numbers. For the moment, I'm still listing this under Brown's title, but listing the Wills version as a likely by-blow or perhaps even a source. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: Br3422

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