Jinny Get Your Hoecake Done

DESCRIPTION: Fiddler's mnemonic for a moderately well-known tune: "Jinny, get your hoecake done, my love, Jinny, get your hoecake done; Jinny, get your hoecake done, my love, Jinny, get your hoecake done."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1931 (Fuson-BalladsOfTheKentuckyHighlands)
KEYWORDS: dancetune nonballad food
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fuson-BalladsOfTheKentuckyHighlands, p. 158, "The Hoe-Cake" (eighth of 12 single-stanza jigs) (1 short text)
ST Fus158C (Full)
Roud #16825
NOTES [94 words]: Harry Dichter and Elliott Shapiro, Early American Sheet Music: Its Lure and Its Lore, 1768-1889, R. R. Bowker, 1941, p. 51, list among their "Illustrated Negro Minstrel Songs (Of the 'Jim Crow' Type)" a piece, "Jenny Get Your Hoe Cake Done," published by Firth & Hall in 1840. The sheet music describes it as "The Celebrated Banjo Song, As sung with Great Applause at the Broadway Circus, N. Y., by J. W. Sweeney." Presumably that was the original source for the fiddle tune, but I do not know whether either the text or the tune is the same as modern versions. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.6
File: Fus158C

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