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: 1849 (Gumbo Chaff)
KEYWORDS: dancetune nonballad food
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Fuson-BalladsOfTheKentuckyHighlands, p. 158, "The Hoe-Cake" (eighth of 12 single-stanza jigs) (1 short text)
Scarborough-OnTheTrailOfNegroFolkSongs, pp. 109-110 "Ol' Virginny Never Tire" (see NOTES)
ADDITIONAL: Gumbo Chaff, _The Ethiopian Glee Book_ (#3?) (Boston: Elias Howe, 1849 (available on Internet Archive), p. 41, "Jenny Get Your Hoecake Done" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Fus158C (Full)
Roud #16825
RECORDINGS:
Harry Waugh, "Ginny Git Your Hoecake Done" (in BayardCollection, video 37 ("Harry Waugh" starting at 00.32);in BayardCollection, video 37 ("Harry Waugh" starting at 17.48))
NOTES [427 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
The Scarborough-OnTheTrailOfNegroFolkSongs reference has a chorus of "Ol' folks, young folks, cl'ar de kitchen, (2x) Jinny, git yo' hoecake round" as alternate to "Ol' folks, young folks, cl'ar the kitchen, (2x) Ol' Virginny never tire."
The Gumbo Chaff Christy Minstrels song has four verses, with a chorus "O Jenny get your hoecake done my dear, O Jenny get your hoecake done."
The verses seem typical "minstrel," but I haven't seen them anywhere else (except Newman I. White, American Negro Folk-Songs (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928 ("Digitized by Google")), who quotes Chaff's first, second, and fourth verses on pp. 240, 247, 248).
"Da hen and chickens went to roost, De hawk flew down and bit de goose, He bit de ole hen in de back, I really believe dat am a fac"
"As I was gwine along de road, 'Pon a stump dere sat a toad. Da tadpole winked at Pollewog's daughter, An kicked de bullfrog plump in de water."
"High heel boot without any strap, Hand me down my leghorn hat, I's gwine to de Astor house to dine, I won't be back till half past nine."
"Apple cider and cinnamon beer, Christmas comes but once a year. Ginger puddin and punkin pie, Grey cat kicked out black cat's eye."
The Harry Waugh song has four verses in the same style as Gumbo Chaff's, but all different. The chorus is "Ginnie, git your hoecake a'done, my darling, Ginnie, git your hoecake a'done, my dear."
"I drove my oxen to a shop, And I hollered whojoa, and they did stop. As I walked for'ard to well my ring, Oh the danged old oxen started again."
"Then I drove my oxen to a hill, And the both darn things they both stood still. Well I hitched myself in front of my team, And I went uphill like goin' by steam."
"Oh, the tadpole, he fell into the well, And he hollers ouch, it's cold as hell. He twist his tail around a stump, And he rared and he kicked but he couldn't make a jump."
"I sang a song to see a fight, And Sal hit Kate with the rollin' pin. Sing Sal, oh, Kate, don't do that again." - BS
Last updated in version 7.1
File: Fus158C

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