"Old Black Joe" is a

parlor song Parlour music (or parlor music) is a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of houses, usually by amateur singers and piano, pianists. Disseminated as sheet music, its heyday came in the 19th ...

Stephen Foster Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826January 13, 1864), known as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour music, parlour and Folk music, folk music during the Romantic music, Romantic period. He wr ...

(1826–1864). It was published by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York in 1860. Ken Emerson, author of the book ''Doo-Dah!'' (1998), indicates that Foster's fictional Joe was inspired by a servant in the home of Foster's father-in-law, Dr. McDowell of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. The song is not written in dialect. Emerson believes that the song's "soft melancholy" and its "elusive undertone" (rather than anything musical), brings the song closest to traditional African-American

spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged varied African cultural influences with the exp ...

. Harold Vincent Milligan describes the song as "one of the best of the Ethiopian ontemporary parlance for blackface minstrel songssongs ... its mood is one of gentle melancholy, of sorrow without bitterness. There is a wistful tenderness in the music."

Jim Kweskin Jim Kweskin (born July 18, 1940, Stamford, Connecticut) is an American folk, jazz, and blues musician, most notable as the founder of the Jim Kweskin jug band, also known as Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Bob Si ...

covered the song on his 1971 album ''Jim Kweskin's America''. The song has sometimes been recorded as "Poor Old Joe", including by

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional American football, football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for h ...

who recorded it several times, for example in 1928 and 1930. Other notable recordings were by

Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian, entertainer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwi ...

(recorded June 16, 1941),

Jerry Lee Lewis Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935October 28, 2022) was an American pianist, singer, and songwriter. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as "rock 'n' roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis m ...

(1959) and

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and ...

(recorded July 13, 1950).

Lyrics

Adaptations

Thomas Dixon, Jr. Thomas Frederick Dixon Jr. (January 11, 1864 – April 3, 1946) was an American polymath: a Baptist minister, politician, lawyer, lecturer, writer, and filmmaker. Dixon wrote two best-selling novels, '' The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the Whi ...

's one-act play ''Old Black Joe'' was produced in New York in 1912. *

Roy Harris Roy Ellsworth Harris (February 12, 1898 – October 1, 1979) was an American composer. He wrote music on American subjects, and is best known for his Symphony No. 3. Life Harris was born in Chandler, Oklahoma on February 12, 1898. His ancestry ...

made a choral adaptation of the song: ''Old Black Joe'', A Free Paraphrase for full chorus of mixed voices a capella (1938). * In July 1926,

Fleischer Studios Fleischer Studios () was an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures in 1942, the parent company and the distri ...

released a short cartoon of the song in the ''

Song Car-Tunes '' Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes'', ''Song Car-Tunes'', or (as some sources erroneously say) ''Sound Car-Tunes'', is a series of short three-minute animated films produced by Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer between May 1924 and September 1927, pionee ...

'' series, made in the DeForest

Phonofilm Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. In 1919 and 1920, de Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofi ...

sound-on-film process. *The first line of the Chorus lyrics is sung by

Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny is a cartoon character created in the late 1930s at Warner Bros. Cartoons (originally Leon Schlesinger, Leon Schlesinger Productions) and Voice acting, voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his featured roles in the ' ...

in the 1953 ''

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series ''Merrie Melodies'', during t ...

'' cartoon " Southern Fried Rabbit". *

version with Gene Lowery Singers released in 1960. *In a 1973 episode of the TV sitcom '' Maude'' the character of Walter Findlay repeatedly plays the song on an electric organ. *In a 2000 episode of the TV sitcom ''

Strangers with Candy ''Strangers with Candy'' is an American television sitcom created by Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello, Amy Sedaris, and Mitch Rouse that originally aired on Comedy Central from April 7, 1999, to October 2, 2000. Its timeslot was Sundays at 10:00 ...

'' a student sings and plays acoustic guitar. Season 2, Episode 6, "Hit and Run". *In the 1991

Palme d'Or The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festiv ...

winner ''

Barton Fink ''Barton Fink'' is a 1991 American black comedy thriller film written, produced, edited and directed by the Coen brothers. Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts f ...

'', the character of W. P. Mayhew drunkenly performs Foster's song. *In the 2021 TV series ''

Them Them or THEM, a third-person singular or plural accusative personal pronoun, may refer to: Books * ''Them'' (novel), 3rd volume (1969) in American Joyce Carol Oates' ''Wonderland Quartet'' * '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'', 2003 non-fict ...

'', this song is sung in the pilot episode by multiple characters, and again in the fifth episode.

References

External links

Sheet music

"Old Black Joe" search
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

' National Jukebox
"Old Black Joe" search
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

"Old Black Joe"
sung by

Collins & Harlan Collins & Harlan, the team of American singers Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan, formed a popular comic duo between 1903 and 1926. They sang ragtime standards as well as what were known as " coon songs" – music sung by white performers in a ...

at the Alexandria Digital Research Library {{Authority control 1860 songs American songs Parlor songs Songs about old age Songs written by Stephen Foster Blackface minstrel songs