Jimmy Crack(-ed?/-s?) Corn

[Peter A. McGraw]

On the way home the other night I played a CD of folk songs, including "The
Bluetail Fly."  I've always liked the song, but this was the first time it
occurred me to wonder consciously what I'd always puzzled over
subconsciously: What does "Jimmy crack corn" in the chorus mean?  The line
is, "Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care...(repeat 2x)/My master's gone
away."  I always assumed it was an underlying "cracked" with the suffix
fully assimilated or just unheard in the music, but an imperative or an
uninflected 3 sg. would actually make more sense.  The versions I've heard
mix uninflected forms with inflected ones ("The pony run, he jump, he
pitch/He threw my master in the ditch," and "One day he ride around the
farm/The flies so numerous, they did swarm."), so it's hard to tell which
is meant in the case of "crack."

But to get back to the meaning of "Jimmy crack corn": cracking corn seems
to be something that one does on the sly, since the singer apparently can
afford not to care about it only now that the master's gone away.  Does it
refer to making corn liquor ("corn squeezins," as Snuffy Smith would say)?
And is "Jimmy" a slang expression with a specific meaning, or just an
arbitrary name?  Neither the HDAS nor the OED provided any enlightenment,
though the OED cited the same verse in what looks like possibly the
original version: "Jim crack corn, I don't care...Massa's gone away."

Can anybody shed any light on this?

Peter Mc.

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Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************