Old Gray Mare (I), The (The Old Gray Horse; The Little Black Bull)

DESCRIPTION: Concerning an old gray mare (old gray horse, little black bull) that came out of the wilderness (down the meadow, etc.) in Alabam/Arkansas/A long time ago/On to Galilee. Other animals may also be involved. May be used as a playparty
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1838 (William B. Smith; see Notes)
KEYWORDS: horse animal nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE,So)
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Wolford-ThePlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 92-93=Wolford/Richmond/Tillson-PlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 185-186, "There Goes Topsy Through the Window" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 271, "The Old Gray Horse" (1 text plus 2 fragments, 1 tune); 559, "Out of the Wilderness" (1 short text, 1 tune); also possibly 429, "John the Boy, Hello!" (1 text, 1 tune, so short that one cannot tell whether it is the same piece or a different one)
Randolph/Cohen-OzarkFolksongs-Abridged, pp. 231-232, "The Old Gray Horse" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 271A)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 174, "The Old Grey Horse Came Tearing Through the Wilderness" (3 short texts; "A" adds an unusual chorus, "Roll, Riley, roll (x3), Oh, Lord, I'm bound to go")
Scarborough-OnTheTrailOfNegroFolkSongs, pp. 13-14, "Old Gray Horse Come Tearin' Out o' De Wilderness" (1 text plus bits of others, 1 tune); p. 183, (no title) (1 short text)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 102-103, "Old Gray Mare"; 164-165, "Hoosen Johnny" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Roberts/Agey-InThePine #137, "The Little Black Bull" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spurgeon-WaltzTheHall-AmericanPlayParty, pp. 92-93, "Down in Alabama" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jackson-PopularSongsOfNineteenthCenturyAmerica, pp. 65-68, "Down in Alabam' or Ain't I Glad I Got Out de Wilderness"" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 45, "In the Wilderness" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 336-338, "Tearin' Out-a Wilderness" (2 texts plus a fragment, 2 tunes)
Greenway-FolkloreOfTheGreatWest, p. 66, "(The old gray hoss he died in the wilderness)" (1 fragment)
Shay-BarroomBallads/PiousFriendsDrunkenCompanions, p. 29, "The Old Grey Mare" (1 short text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 397, "Hoosen Johnny"; p. 398, "The Old Gray Mare" (2 texts)
Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 63, "The Old Grey Mare" (1 text, tune referenced)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, pp. 408-409, "The Old Gray Mare -- (Get Out of the Wilderness)"
Dime-Song-Book #4/72, p. 22 and #4/64, p. 22, Ain't I Glad to Get Out of the Wilderness"" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: William B. Smith, "The Persimmon Tree and the Beer Dance" in _The Farmers' Register_, Vol. 6, No.1 (1838 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")) (also available on Google Books), p. 59, "Who zen-John, Who-za" (1 fragment)
Roud #751 and 4252
RECORDINGS:
Gene Autry, "The Old Grey Mare" (Conqueror 8686, 1936)
Al Bernard, "The Old Grey Mare" (Vocalion 15643, 1927)
Milton Brown & his Brownies, "The Old Grey Mare" (Decca 5260, 1936)
Fiddlin' John Carson & Moonshine Kate, "The Old Grey Horse Ain't What He Used to Be" (OKeh 45471, 1930)
Lew Childre, "The Old Grey Mare" (Gennett 7312/Champion 16093/Supertone 9773, 1930)
[Arthur] Collins & [Byron] Harlan "Old Grey Mare" (Victor 18387, 1917) (Emerson 7298, c. 1917) (Columbia A2382, 1917) (Little Wonder 780, 1918)
Vernon Dalhart, "The Old Grey Mare" (Perfect 12421/Conqueror 7071, 1928) (Banner 2180/Jewel 5187/Perfect 12421/Regal 8469/Conqueror 7071/Conqueror 7169, 1928; rec. 1927)
Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band, "The Old Grey Mare" (Victor 18369, 1917)
Earl Johnson & his Dixie Entertainers[/Clodhoppers], "Old Gray Mare Kicking Out of the Wilderness" (OKeh 45183, 1928; rec. 1927)
Jimmy Johnson's String Band, "Old Blind Dog" (Champion 16541 [possibly issued as by Andy Palmer], 1932; on KMM)
[Billy] Jones & [Ernest] Hare, "The Old Grey Mare" (Edison 51618, 1925)
Elmo Newcomer, "Old Grey Mare" CroMart 101, n.d. but prob. late 1940s - early 1950s)
Land Norris, "Old Grey Mare" (OKeh 45047, 1926)
Obed Pickard, "The Old Gray Horse" (Columbia 15246-D, 1928; rec. 1927)
Gid Tanner & his Skillet Lickers, "The Old Gray Mare" (Columbia 15170-D, 1927)
University Quartet, "The Old Gray Mare" (Pathe 20267, 1917)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Old Abe Lincoln Came Out of the Wilderness" (tune)
cf. "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts" (tune)
cf. "The Big Black Bull"
cf. I Ain't a-Scared of Your Jail (tune, structure)
cf. "Horsie, Keep Your Tail Up" (lyrics)
cf. "Go in the Wilderness" (tune, structure)
cf. "Old Virginny Never Tire"
cf. "The Old Black Bull" (form; probably also tune)
SAME TUNE:
Old Abe Lincoln Came Out of the Wilderness (File: San168)
Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts (File: PHCFS133)
The King's Navy (File: Hopk063)
Here We Sit Like Birds in the Wilderness (File: ACSF164H)
Swimming in the Delaware (Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, p. 163)
Floatin' Down the Delaware (Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 157; Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 163)
I Don't Give a Darn for the Whole State of Iowa (Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 251)
I Ain't A-Scared of Your Jail (on PeteSeeger35)
Aren't You Glad You Joined the Republicans? (Republican campaign song, c. 1860; cf. e.g. Allan Nevins, _The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War 1859-1861_ [volume IV of _The Ordeal of the Union_] (Scribners, 1950, p. 315))
Old Joe Hooker, won't you get out of the Wilderness (Song supposedly sung by J. E. B. Stuart during the Battle of Chalcellorsville; see Stephen W. Sears, _Chancellorsville_, Houghton Mifflin, 1996, p. 335)
NOTES [321 words]: Roud seems to make this into two numbers, 751 and 4252, but I can't tell what the distinction is. But see Paul Stamler's note below....
The 1858 sheet music credits this to "J. Warner," but no information about Warner has been recovered, and there are indications that the song was in the Black traditional repertoire before the 1850s.
A common bit of folklore claims that this is based on the exploits (?) of an animal that took fright during the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1862. The date of the sheet music, of course, proves this false. - RBW
Sam Hinton traces this to an African-American spiritual, "I Wait Upon the Lord" ("If you want to get to heaven go in the wilderness... and wait upon the Lord"). - PJS [See now the Index entry for "Go in the Wilderness." - RBW]
Are you sure this is the same ballad as "Little black bull come down the meadow/Hoosen Johnny, Hoosen Johnny"? I think they're part of the same family, but maybe we should split them. By the way, there's a great bawdy version of "Hoosen Johnny" called "Houston, Sam Houston", with sound effects. - PJS
It's another case of the extremes being different but the intermediate versions being too mixed to clearly distinguish. Easier to lump the whole family here. If we don't, we *will* mess up. Or, at least, I will. The versions of this song are so diverse that it gets to the point of parodying itself....
It would be an interesting project, for someone, to determine whether these are two songs that mixed or one song that diverged to an extreme degree. - RBW
The William B. Smith text, published in 1838, refers to a plantation dance "some years" before."The ball was opened with great ceremony by singing a song known to our Virgina slaves by the name of 'who zen-John, who-za.'
'Old black bull come down de hollow,
He shake hi' tail, you hear him bellow;
When he bellow he jar de river,
He paw de yearth, he make it quiver.
Who-zen John, who-za'" - BS
Last updated in version 6.7
File: R271

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