I DON’T LOVE NOBODY: EARL JOHNSON & HIS DIXIE ENTERTAINERS STRIKE A DEFIANT TONE ON ‘AMOUR’ BUT NOT WITHOUT SWINGING THE PARTY MAAAAADLY.

 

Our deep dive into historical old-time fiddle music continues. Behold one Earl Johnson, fiddler, and his walloping tune “I Don’t Love Nobody” from 1927. Our musicology team has been working overtime, and below, Dear Reader, you can find biographical details, beguiling analyses, full lyrics, and session details, amidst our usual incitements to drink and dance. We suggest that you have a few sips of swamp gas (aka moonshine), turn up the volume, and yes: jump around.

We’re talking some greasy, rowdy, electric, filthy fiddling. One imagines the strings of Johnson’s instrument fraying after every “hoedown.” However it goes, it goes madly. Whoever sings the high falsetto novelty stuff in the chorus — well, that fellow will understand your loneliness, Pilgrim, and he’ll make you feel A-okay about the lack of love in your life. It’s a standoff, basically. “I don’t love nobody, nobody loves me.” Might as well hop in concert to the bedlam. Might as well laugh and cry all at once. “Boop” goes the cap on the moonshine.

Johnson was born into a musical family, in 1886, near Atlanta. Early on and throughout his career, he played with luminary Georgia musician Fiddlin’ John Carson. [Nota bene: It is possible that Johnson is ‘second fiddle’ on Carson’s version of “Goodbye Liza Jane,” a tune that is part of the “Liza Jane” family of songs.] A virtuosic performer himself, Johnson became state fiddle champion (in Georgia) in 1926, a year before he cut this side for OKeh Records. In all, he recorded more than 50 tunes for a variety of labels, toured broadly, and was eventually enshrined in the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame.

Earl Johnson

Like many musicians of his era, including Carson and African American guitar player Peg Leg Howell, Johnson repurposed songs that had been mainstays of burnt cork minstrelsy. “I Don’t Love Nobody” was written by minstrel performer Lew Sully and dates to at least 1896, if not earlier. The lyrics of the original Sully version are horrendously racist, while, mercifully, the Johnson version is much milder, almost to the point of being a completely different song: in fact, the ‘speaker’ of Johnson’s song is probably meant to be white and not a white person pretending to be Black. Nevertheless, the singing style of Johnson and his bandmates may blend old-time and minstrel traditions. It is important to acknowledge this type of difficult archaeology, even as we can appreciate Johnson’s fiddling skills and the upbeat rowdiness of the music.

Here, now, we offer instructions on how to proceed. Scroll up to the top of the page and click “play” on the video. That would be number one, and after that — well — allow yourself to be swung maaaaadly.

Lyrics, session details, and sources of information follow. Enjoy.

lyrics:

I Don’t Love Nobody (1927)
Earl Johnson & His Dixie Entertainers


Met Miss Martha Johnson down at a colored ball
Tried her best to shake me, that wouldn’t work at all
She told me her troubles, she asked me for a dime
G’wan now honey, you ain’t no gal of mine

Chorus:
I don’t love nobody, nobody loves me
You’re after all my money, you don’t care for me
Gonna live single, always be free
I don’t love nobody, nobody loves me

Went out with [a matron]* down on Peter Street
Met some tall li’l lady, she smiled at me so [mean]**
She told me she loved me, and marry me to git away
G’wan now honey, you ain’t gonna talk with me

Chorus

Down in Alabama, settled down for life
Met a girl named Dinah, I choosed her for my wife
See that gal every Sunday, and I asked her to marry away
See that gal on Monday, and this is what she said:

Chorus

Met Miss Martha Johnson down at a colored ball
Tried her best to shake me, that wouldn’t work at all
She told me her troubles, she asked me for a dime
G’wan now honey, you ain’t no gal of mine

Chorus


Notes:
*Second verse, first line: “matron” is what we hear. Other possibilities include “Mabel” or some half-slurred version of “promenading”
**Second verse, second line: “mean” is what we hear. Another possibility might be a half-slurred version of “sweet”

session details:

Earl Johnson & His Dixie Entertainers. Earl Johnson, fiddle; Byrd Moore, guitar and lead vocal; Emmett Bankston, banjo; Ensemble chorus; Other musicians, if any, unknown. Recorded March 23, 1927 in Atlanta, Ga. Released as OKeh 45101.

 
sources of information:

--Daniel, Wayne W. Pickin’ on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia. University of Illinois Press, 1990
--Discography of American Historical Recordings page for “I Don’t Love Nobody”
--Earl Johnson biography at AllMusic Guide
--Sully, Lew. “I Don’t Love Nobody.” Howley, Haviland & Co. (New York: 1896). This burnt cork minstrelsy sheet music publication can be accessed at its Library of Congress page; be forewarned that the content is offensive

CALL IT BEAUTY: THE OLD TIME FIDDLE TUNE “CANDY GIRL” BY UNCLE BUNT STEPHENS.

 

In 1926, a man named John L. “Uncle Bunt” Stephens recorded an unforgettable tune—“Candy Girl”—as part of one-day recording stint at Columbia Records in New York. He had drifted out of obscurity after he may have won (or placed highly in) a series of fiddling contests sponsored by Henry Ford. We say “may have won” because there may have been fewer contests than claimed, or rather no contests at all. Uncle Bunt toured that year and made some notable appearances before drifting back to the rural area of Tennessee where he lived with his second wife.

In the mid-1920s, Ford dealerships apparently sponsored local fiddling contests. Uncle Bunt seems to have competed in these, placing highly or triumphing. Then, according to legend, Uncle Bunt and other highly-placing fiddlers traveled to Detroit in early 1926, where Henry Ford himself held a supreme fiddling competition that Uncle Bunt claims to have won, by playing “Old Hen Cackled” and “Sail Away Lady.” Furthermore, according to legend, Ford presented the triumphant fiddler with a new car, a rich payday, and a new suit; he also paid to have Uncle Bunt’s teeth fixed. A scholarly article appearing in the Journal of the Society for American Music suggests that therein may lie more fiction than fact. (We wonder if dental records could offer some conclusive evidence.)

A letter from Uncle Bunt to Ford dated August 20, 1926, refers to the “blue ribbon” that Uncle Bunt had been awarded at Ford’s last old time fiddling contest. It also inquires about the prospects of a Ford automobile being made available for Uncle Bunt’s touring. At the very least, this would seem to discredit the notion that Ford had awarded Stephens a car. There is no record of a reply.

However things may have transpired with the Ford Motor Company, Uncle Bunt Stephens enjoyed some fame in 1926. He appeared at the WSN Barn Dance (later renamed the Grand Ole Opry), on radio stations, and at performance venues across the eastern half of the country. He traveled to New York, where he cut “Candy Girl.” Columbia Records would make it Side 1, bundled with “Left in the Dark Blues” as Side 2. Columbia also released “Louisburg Blues” b/w “Sail Away Lady.” It’s possible that Uncle Bunt recorded two additional songs at the same session—“Jenny in the Garden” and “Leather Breeches”—but if he did, these cuts were never released. He recorded these songs on March 29, 1926; he would never record again.

Three days before the recording session, the New Britain Herald (of Conn.) reported that “Uncle Bunt Stephens of Tullahoma, Tenn., who won a Ford fiddling bee, is visiting town. He complains that in Nashville two pairs of pants given him by Henry [Ford] were stolen and he had to pay $1.10 for a shave in Chicago.” Two forms of theft in the big city. Two good reasons to ditch the dangers of densely populated regions for the less-manic tableaux of the countryside.

Importantly, Uncle Bunt’s recordings have been included in Harry Smith’s influential Anthology of American Folk Music as well as the Harry Smith B-sides anthology. The author Allen Lowe also included Uncle Bunt’s music as part of his impressive 30-CD anthology that accompanies his recently released two volume set of books, “Turn Me Loose White Man,” in which Lowe analyzes a wide swath of important American recordings. Uncle Bunt’s four songs made quite an impression.

To our ears, “Candy Girl” walks the line between brightness and mournfulness. Call it beauty. The tune is triumphant, to be sure, yet it expresses the powerful, grating sorrows that inform our systems of remorse. Columbia billed this record as “mountain dance music” and we don’t disagree. It’s hard to imagine folks sitting still, when encountering “Candy Girl” in performance. Of course, we encountered “Candy Girl” while sitting still, and it gouged us. By “gouge” we mean that it clobbered us with its inherent (priceless) weights. The tune played perfectly in the pandemic ravaged world of 2021, as we imagine it played perfectly just scant years after the Spanish Flu receded.

John L. Stephens was born in Tennessee, orphaned at an early age, and raised by an aunt. He was proficient on the harmonica as a boy, and claimed to have bought a fiddle from a tramp; the fiddle was of German manufacture and may have dated to 1699. While “Uncle” is a common title bestowed upon venerable fiddlers, we can’t comment on the man’s full nickname. He didn’t play baseball, and to our knowledge, he didn’t ram anything with his forehead. Uncle Bunt Stephens passed away in 1951 at the age of 72. “Candy Girl” lives on. We hear it and our eyes well-up, simply.

Brownsville Herald (Tex.) April 3, 1926

sources of information
AllMusic Guide page for Uncle Bunt Stephens
Discography of American Historical Recordings page for Uncle bunt Stephens
Paul M. Gifford, “Henry Ford's Dance Revival and Fiddle Contests: Myth and Reality,” Journal of the Society for American Music 4, n. 3 (Aug. 2010): 330-332
National Museum of American History page for the “Candy Girl”
New Britain Herald via Chronicling America (March 26, 1926)
Don Roberson via Internet Archive Way Back Machine article on Uncle Bunt Stephens
Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music at Smithsonian Folkways
Harry Smith B-Sides anthology at Dust-to-Digital
Ryan Thomson, The Fiddler’s Almanac (1985)
Wikipedia page for Uncle Bunt Stephens