[Alternately: “Old Joe, Or Somebody in de house wid Dinah?” “Ole Joe, or Dare’s Someone In De House Wid Dinah,” “Old Joe, or “Some One In De House Wid Dinah”]

To listen to this song (and others) on the Artists Respond to Juba Site, Click Here.

According to Nathan, Keith first published the song at Boston in 1844 (457). The song is of interest as the vocal line is constructed to allow room for solo banjo breaks, particularly in the pre-chorus sections (see Minstrels in the Parlour). Recorded versions of the song that attempt to channel minstrel performance allow for entire phrases of instrumental break (see Winans’ The Early Minstrel Show). As Mahar suggests, the song recounts the extra-marital escapades of a male slave with a “yaller gal” (398 n. 44). You will also notice that in the B. Williams and Samuel K. Hales edition of the song, explicit reference is made to “The Dandy Broadway Swell”.

Certainly a popular song during the period in question, it seems to have now passed into the American folk canon. The song has been recorded a number of times.

Select Recording History:

Camptown Shakers. Camptown Shakers. Camptown Shakers, 2000.

The Free Staters. Ho! For the Kansas Plains. The Free Staters, 2004.

Winans, Robert, music director and program consultant. The Early Minstrel Show. New World Records, 1998.

Works Cited:

Mahar, William J. Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Chicago: Illinois UP, 1999.

Nathan, Hans. Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: Oklahoma UP, 1962.

Mark Turner