Liner notes from “The Hammons Family » lp (Rounder/Library of Congress)
Sugar Baby or Red Rocking Chair is a widespread folk song, found in the repertoire of a lot banjo players in the South, and still very popular today with old-time and folk musicians. Its simple modal melody can be played on several open-tunings on the 5-string banjo and harmonized in different ways either using major or minor chords (or a combination of both) on a guitar. Its lyrics are easy to remember and can include as many floating verses as a performer can recall. One of its famous verse “Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone” is found in an old Scottish ballad ” The Lass of Roch Royal”.
Liner notes from “The Hammons Family » lp (Rounder/Library of Congress)
Sugar Baby or Red Rocking Chair is a widespread folk song, found in the repertoire of a lot banjo players in the South, and still very popular today with old-time and folk musicians. Its simple modal melody can be played on several open-tunings on the 5-string banjo and harmonized in different ways either using major or minor chords (or a combination of both) on a guitar. Its lyrics are easy to remember and can include as many floating verses as a performer can recall. One of its famous verse “Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone” is found in an old Scottish ballad ” The Lass of Roch Royal”.
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The newish version by Sam Amidon is stunning – both for it’s totally modern, contemporary approach, but also for it’s faithfulness to the original. If anyone want to know how to record one of these old songs in a new, beautiful way, check it out… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVbuEjJMv_I
Oh, I’ve got no sugar baby now.All I can do for seek peace with you,And I can’t get along this a-way.Can’t get along this a-way.All I can do, I’ve said all I can say.I’ll send it to your mama next payday.Send you to your mama next payday.Got no use for the red rockin’ chair,I’ve got no honey baby now.Got no sugar baby now.Who’ll rock the cradle, who’ll sing the song?Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone?Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone?I’ll rock the cradle, I’ll sing the song.I’ll rock the cradle when you gone.I’ll rock the cradle when you gone.It’s all I can do, said all I can say.I will send you to your mama next payday.Laid her in the shade, give her every dime I made.What more could a poor boy do?What more could a poor boy do?Oh, I’ve got no honey baby now.Got no sugar baby now.Said all I can say, I’ve done all I can do,And I can’t make a living with you.Can’t make a living with you.
Sugar Baby or Red Rocking Chair is a widespread folk song, found in the repertoire of a lot banjo players in the South, and still very popular today with old-time and folk musicians. Its simple modal melody can be played on several open-tunings on the 5-string banjo and harmonized in different ways either using major or minor chords (or a combination of both) on a guitar. Its lyrics are easy to remember and can include as many floating verses as a performer can recall. One of its famous verse “Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone” is found in an old Scottish ballad ” The Lass of Roch Royal”.
"They was a doctor in town here, one doctor; M. L. Stallard, Moran Lee Stallard was his name, and that's my name: Moran Lee. We had one doctor in town and he had so many calls he couldn't fill near all of them, but they wasn't many people in Norton at that time and he was out of town. So, my father thought a lot of Doc Stallard, and mother did, too; and so whenever I was born -- whenever I came into the world -- a boy, why, they named me after Moran Lee Stallard. When I was just a little toddler toddling around, why, my dad com- menced calling me Dock, and all my brothers and sisters and everybody called me Dock. And even people, my acqua.intances -- and when I was going to school I didn't even want anybody to even mention the name Moran Lee-- M-o-r-a-n L-double-e. I thought that was awful ugly; I'd rather be called Dock two-to-one. So, after I got older, why, doing my official business and so on I Signed my right name Moran Lee, and when I made phonograph records, why, I decided I'd better have my name put on there the way that everybody knowed me. And nearly everybody knowed me Dock and they didn't know anything about my name being Moran Lee or M. L. Boggs."
“Sugar Babe” belongs to a family of “rounder” songs, cultivated especially by young men, carefree and assertive in spirit, often risqué and in the Appalachian South associated in the early part of the last century with the five-string banjo. Afro-american influences show up frequently in the “rounder” songs and it is possible that “Sugar Babe” itslef has afro-american connectionsLiner notes from “The Hammons Family » lp (Rounder/Library of Congress)
