Annotation:Sugar in my Coffee-O

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X:1 T:I Like Sugar in My Coffee M:2/4 L:1/8 S:Viola “Mom” Ruth – Pioneer Western Folk Tunes (1948) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G DG B/c/B/G/|AB c2|DG B/c/B/G/|BA G2|DG B/c/B/G/|AB c2| DG B/c/B/G/|BA G2||ed B/B/d/d/|ef g2|ed B/B/G/G/|BA A2| ed B/B/d/d/|ef g2|ed B/B/G/G/|AG G2||DG B/c/B/G/|AB c2| DG B/c/B/G/|BA G2|DG B/c/B/G/|AB c2|DG B/c/B/G/|BA G2|| ed B/B/d/d/|ef g2|ed B/c/B/G/|BA A2|ed B/c/B/d/|ef g2|ed D/E/G/B/|AG G2||

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SUGAR IN MY COFFEE(-O). AKA – “I Like Sugar in my Coffee-O.” AKA and see "Cornstalk Fiddle." American, Reel (2/4 or cut time). USA; Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Silberberg, Thede): ABAB’ (Ruth). The tune is sometimes played in the key of ‘A’. Bayard (1981) thinks there is a relationship between his Pennsylvania collected sets of "Up Jumped Jinny With Her Shirt Tail Torn" and this tune. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozarks Mountains fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. The following rhyme was collected with the tune in Oklahoma (via Thede):

Go there once and go no more,
If they don't give no sugar in my coffee o;
How in the world's the old folk know,
That I'll take sugar in my coffee o.

Sugar's high and sugar's low,
But I'll take sugar in my coffee o;
How in the hell's the old folk know,
That I'll take sugar in my coffee o. .... (Thede)

I went there, but I'll go no mo'
I didn't get sugar in my coffee, oh.
The wind blew high, the wind blew low,
The wind blew sugar in my coffee-o.

African-American collector Thomas Talley, in his book Negro Folk Rhymes (1922), included a song called “Sugar in Coffee” that is related to this song, and predates white recorded versions such as Tennessee’s Uncle Dave Macon’s (“She Wouldn’t Give Me Sugar in My Coffee”) and Georgia’s Fiddlin’ John Carson’s (“Little More Sugar in My Coffee”). Talleys version goes:

Sheep’s in de meader a-mowin’ o’ de hay,
De Honey’s in de bee-gum, so dey all say;
My head’s up an’ I’se boun’ to go,
Who’ll take sugar in de coffee-o?..... (Similar to Uncle Dave Macon’s lyric)

I’se de prettiest liddle gal in de county-o,
My mammy an’ daddy, dey bofe say so.
I looks in de glass, it don’t say, “No”;
So I’ll take sugar in de coffee-o. .... (Close to John Carson’s lyric)

The melody is cognate with Kentucky fiddler Clyde Davenport's "Cornstalk Fiddle and Shoestring Bow." Compare also with "Cotton Eyed Joe (1)" as printed in Ira Ford's Traditional Music in America (1940, p. 60). Compare also the first four measures of Frank Reed's "Sugar in the Coffee" with Tennessee fiddler Charlie Acuff's "The Josie Girl/Josie-O," learned from his father.

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