Guys, I'll be very thankful if you'll take a moment to try and help me with a song that the great Alan Lomax recorded for the album "Negro Prison Songs and Blues" called "Jumpin' Judy". I don't remember the name of the prisoner who sings that:)
I can?t get the link to play and don?t have the disc you refer to. What I do have is the 1957 LP Murderer?s Home (Pye-Nixa) where Lomax very thoughtfully transcribes all the work songs. This may not be the version you are speaking of but it might be an aid to you understanding the general theme and sense of the song, thereby creating your own transcription from the version you have.
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Side A, Band 6: Jumpin' Judy, sung by Tangle Eye, Fuzzle Red, Hard Hair and others. It has been the humane custom in some southern camps to allow women visitors on Sundays and national holidays and to give the trustees the opportunity and the privacy for lovemaking. Often prostitutes come in the guise of wives or relatives, Judy, who introduced "jumpin'" may have been one of these. In any case, in this song she is soon replaced by Rosie, who in prison songs in the Southwest usually plays the role of the faithful girl coming with a pardon or a reprieve for her man.
O well, it's jumpin', jumpin'Judy/ /
O well, it's jumpin' jumpin' Judy /,
Boys, she was a mighty fine gal./
O well, she brought that jumpin',/ (3)
Baby, to this whole wide world./
O well, she brought it in the mornin',/ (3),
Baby, just a little fore day./
You catch the Illinois Central,/ (3)
Baby, go to Kankakee./
O well, and yonder come old Rosie,/ (2)
O boys, and yonder come Rosie,/
Baby, how in the world do you know?/
O well, I knowed her by her apron,/(2)
O boys, I knowed her by her apron,/
Baby red's the dress that she wore./
O well, she wore a Mother Hubbard / (3)
O boy she wore a Mother Hubbard,/
Baby, like a morning gown./
O well, I heard her tell the sergeant, /(2)
O boy, I heard her tell the sergeant,/
Sir, I've come after my man./
"Poor boy, he's been here a-rollin'/,/ (3)
Baby, for the state so long."/
"O well, I know he's done got sorry,/ (3)
Buddy, that he ever done wrong."/
This version was actually turned into a "folk song" and recorded in 1959 by Guy Carawan and Peggy Seegar, it became hugely popular in 60s British folk circles.
