Annotation:Jim Crow

Tune properties and standard notation

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JIM CROW. AKA - "Jump Jim Crow." Old-Time, Breakdown and Song Tune. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABC. A song popularized on the minstrel stage of the mid-19th century. Dave Evans remarks on the similarity of the title "Jim Crow" to "John Crow," a folk name for a buzzard, and suggests that the "Jim Crow" song and dance is perhaps derived from the slave dance "The Buzzard Lope" (see Parish, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands, 1942). See also "Talk:Jump Jim Crow."

Blackface minstrel troupe, c. 1875

Come, listen all you gals and boys,
I'm just from Tuckyhoe.
I'm goin' to sing a little song,
My name's Jim Crow. .... (Ford)

Turn about and twist about,
And do jes' so
An' every time you turn about
You jump Jim Crow. .... (Scarborough, On the Trail)

The popular melody was imported to England and, as were other minstrel tunes, was absorbed into traditional repertoire, where it appears in musicians manuscripts of the mid-19th century.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; p. 83 (additional lyrics on p. 424).

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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Tune properties and standard notation