Hoe The Corn, Moses: A Song History

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"Hoe the Corn, Moses" is a D-major old-time breakdown whose title, according to the Traditional Tune Archive, is taken from the chorus of a minstrel-style song called "Razors in the Air."[1] The Library of Congress holds an 1880 Boston printing by Oliver Ditson & Co. of a song with that title, billed as a comic song and chorus sung by Barry Maxwell with the Haverly Mastodon Minstrels, whose chorus is built on the phrase that names the tune.[2] It is written in caricatured Black dialect, and its lyrics include racial slurs.[2] Jane Keefer's folk-music index credits the song to Harry Bennett, although the 1880 sheet music names no composer, only its performer and its copyright holder, so its authorship is not settled in the sources consulted here.[2][3]

Etching of a long, flat field of tall plants with a line of trees and a fence along the horizon.

Otto H. Bacher, Cornfield, etching, 1879. A cornfield of the song's time, shown for its subject.

According to the Tune Archive, the singer and banjo player Harry C. Browne recorded the song with the Peerless Quartet for Columbia, and Vernon Dalhart recorded an early version.[1] The song outlived the minstrel stage: Keefer lists "Razors in the Air" on the Kingston Trio's LP Goin' Places (Capitol, 1961) and in a 1967 Mel Bay banjo method.[3] Old-time musicians cut the melody down to two parts for fiddle, and the Tune Archive says the fiddle version is self-credited to Kerry Blech, who reworked a bluesy song arrangement by the New York musician Pat Conte and played it in Northwest bands during the 1980s, after which other players took it up.[1] It has since appeared in tune books such as the first volume of Phillips's Traditional American Fiddle Tunes (1994) and the second volume of The Portland Collection (2005), and recordings by Dan Levenson and others.[1][4]

Larry Conger includes it in Hoedowns And Breakdowns, a book of 28 danceable fiddle tunes arranged for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, with an MP3 recording of each tune, published by Fingers Of Steel.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Hoe The Corn, Moses"

Browse more tunes like this: Old-Time & Fiddle Tunes Dulcimer Tab

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Hoe the Corn Moses".
  2. Library of Congress: "Razors in the air" (sheet music, 1880).
  3. Jane Keefer: "Folk Music: An Index to Recorded and Print Resources" (R).
  4. Jane Keefer: "Folk Music: An Index to Recorded and Print Resources" (M).
  5. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hoedowns And Breakdowns".
  6. Image: Otto H. Bacher, Cornfield, etching, 1879. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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