The origins of this one are pretty murky. There is clear evidence that by the mid 1920s it was a well known tune performed by a variety of artists, both black and white and is widely thought to have been a vaudeville / medicine show type tune from the time, inevitably spawning a number of variations.
It was recorded in 1924 by a white old time singer called Henry Witter and in 1926 by Dock Walsh. I?ve not been able to find any online recordings or youtube links for those. If anyone has those recordings, I?d be intrigued to hear them.
The earliest recording by a ?bluesman? was that of Luke Jordan in August 1927 which went by the title ?Travelin Coon?:
Coley Jones, a mandolin player with the Dallas String Band, recorded the tune just a few months later in December 1927. Jones was from Dallas and Jordan from Virginia, so the tune had certainly travelled by then?
There is an interesting old thread on Mudcat.org which discusses the tune and directed me to Paul Oliver?s Saints and Sinner?s book where it is noted that 3 versions had been ?collected? by Odum & Johnson. I didn?t know who Odum & Johnson were so did a little digging and found a fascinating resource which includes full text of two books produced by Odum & Johnson in 1925 and 1926 about ?the negro and his songs?. One has to look past the language and perspective which is, of course, of its time but they are fascinating texts and well worth a look. There are many familiar tunes and themes to be found. The texts are here:
http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/the-negro-and-his-songs--odum--johnson-1925.aspxIn the latter of those two books one finds the following:
?A popular bad man song of many versions is the
Travelling Man. No one has ever outdistanced him.
A long story, rapidly moving, miraculously achieving,
triumphantly ending, it represents jazz song, phono-
graph record, banjo ballad, quartet favorite, although
it is not easy to capture. Three versions have been
found in the actual singing, one by a quartet which
came to Dayton, Tennessee, to help entertain the
evolution mongers; another by Kid Ellis, of Spartan-
burg, South Carolina, himself a professed traveling
man; a third by a North Carolina Negro youth who
had, however, migrated to Pennsylvania and re-
turned after traveling in seven or eight other states
of the union. The South Carolina version, which is
given here, is of the Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'
type of vaudeville and ballad mixture.
Travelin' Man
Now I jus' wanna tell you 'bout travelin' man,
His home was in Tennessee;
He made a livin' stealin' chickens
An' anything he could see.
Chorus:
He was a travelin' man,
He certainly was a travelin' man,
He was mos' travelin' man
That ever was in this Ian'.
And when the law got after that coon,
He certainly would get on the road.
An' if a train pass, no matter how fas'.
He certainly would get on boa'd.
He was a travelin' man,
Was seen for miles aroun ',
He never got caught, an' never give up
Until the police shot him down.
The police shot him with a rifle,
An' the bullet went through his head,
The people came for miles aroun'
To see if he was dead.
They sent down South for his mother,
She was grieved and moved with tears,
Then she open the coffin to see her son,
An' the fool had disappeared.
The police got in an auto
An' started to chase that coon,
They run him from six in the mornin'
Till seven that afternoon.
The coon ran so bloomin' fast
That fire come from his heels;
He scorched the cotton an' burnt the corn
An' cut a road through the farmer's* fields.
The coon went to the spring one day
To get a pail of water;
The distance he had to go
Was two miles and a quarter.
He got there an' started back,
But he stumbled an' fell down;
He went to the house and got another pail,
An' caught the water 'fore it hit the ground.
The coon stole a thousand dollars,
Was in broad open day time.
I ast the coon if he wa'n't ashame
To commit such an awful crime.
They put the coon on the gallows
An' told him he would die;
He crossed his legs an' winked his eye
And sailed up in the sky.
The coon got on the Titanic
An' started up the ocean blue,
But when he saw the iceberg,
Right overboa 'd he flew.
The white folks standin' on the deck,
Said "Coon, you are a fool."
But 'bout three minutes after that
He was shootin' craps in Liverpool.
Interestingly, a couple of the verses there seem to appear only rarely in the well-known modern versions which largely seem to derive from the much better known Pink Anderson recording. Indeed, one sees the tune attributed to Pink on occasion, which seems unlikely given the song?s history. Pink recorded the tune in 1961:
I have not mined all of the versions available on youtube as people may have favourites they want to add. I think Bookbinder?s version is well known- he named an album after it. There are also a number of folk / country singers who have done it- Doc Watson being the most obvious and prominent.
I?d be interested to know about people who currently have the song in repertoire. The only modern player I have personally seen doing it is Rick Franklin. Ben Andrews also recorded a version.
Finally- a bit of self indulgence- here is my version (it is the Back Porch after all).
https://simonfield.bandcamp.com/track/travellin-man
