Annotation:Nicodemus Johnson's Reel

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NICODEMUS JOHNSON'S REEL. American, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. A blackface minstrel tune printed c. 1865. Don Meade finds the tune reprinted in Ditson's Minstrel Songs Old and New, 1883, the same year Ryan's Mammoth was published.

Nicodemus Johnson, published by Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston, 1865.

The post-Civil War lyric goes:

I've just arrived in town to-day,
And here I is before you,
To sing about my name and occupation;
I come from old Virginia State,
De best in all de nation,
Oh, ho! oh, ho! to Nicodemus Johnson.

My master was a Union man,
He did not like secession,
And so he had to leave de old plantation;
I thought to stay behind him dere
'Twould be an aggravation,
Oh, ho! oh, ho! to Nicodemus Johnson.

I's glad dis war come to an end,
And peace come frew de nation,
I'll go right back to Dixie's land, and stay dar,
For I isn't any contraband,
I love de old plantation,
Oh, ho! oh, ho! dat's Nicodemus Johnson.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 35. Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 62.

Recorded sources:

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