Gimmy Crack Corn

[sagehen]

Peter writes:
>Like Beverly, I fail to find any indication in the song that the narrator
>is saddened by the departure of his master.  If "Jim[my] crack corn" indeed
>refers to a person doing something (as opposed to naming an inferior
>liquor), then the master's absence has had two positive outcomes: Jim or
>Jimmy is now free to crack corn (to whatever end) and the narrator is free
>not to worry about it.
~~~~~~~~~
Jim Cullen, in /Art & Democracy/, instances "Blue-tail fly" in discussing
the ways in which minstrel songs moved in both directions between  black &
white culture.  I interpret this as:  Mining & revising material from black
culture to create an image of black life entertaining to northern whites
(more than likely to be highly distorted),  that which retained some of the
original critical flavor was in some instances reabsorbed into black
culture.  Thus the ambiguity of the reaction to massa's having gone away:
starting out as rejoicing, it is reinterpreted as sorrowing, then
resurrected as rejoicing.
A. Murie