One of the most interesting of all the Negro’s secular songs is the folk minstrel type. This minstrel song is similar to the original minstrel, in which one or more wandering musicians and songsters travel from place to place rendering song and music with varied accompaniments. Sometimes one singer goes alone, sometimes two, sometimes a quartette. They are entertainers in the real sense that they exhibit themselves and their art with all the naturalness and spontaneity possible. Furthermore, such minstrels are not infrequently ingenious in composing new verses and adapting them to old tunes or to newly discovered ones. Such songs are also well adapted to social gatherings and to various special occasions. They should be distinguished from the black-face type of vaudeville song and the minstrel show, although of course the song of the traveling show must inevitably influence the minstrel type a great deal. For sheer type-portraiture, however, the minstrel Negro and his song must undoubtedly be presented if the whole picture is to be complete.

Typical scenes are the singing on special gala occasions, such as fairs, holidays, and picnics, at resorts of the whites, on the road or on street corners. Such singers also accompany many a patent-medicine man or other street-corner vender of wares. Sung in this way, of course, are many of the ordinary secular creations, but in general the minstrel type is more finished and formal, with more of rhyme and something of the ballad technique, with much of the humor and entertaining qualities implied in its kind. Most of these songs would repay special study on the part of the student of folk songs and ballads who wishes to trace origins and developments. While all the songs we have listed are Negro songs in the sense that they are sung much and regularly by Negroes, with the special artistic expression and manner common to them, they are, of course, often much mixed with similar songs originating elsewhere. In the case of It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’,[77] for instance, the origin of course is a common one, and many of the scores of verses are sung alike by white and Negro minstrels, with only minor distinctions due to manner and situation. And yet of the several hundred verses which are even now extant, some are very clearly of Negro origin, exhibiting something of the Negro’s traditional phrases and his blues. A Negro quartette singing It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’ is undoubtedly singing a Negro song. Among the songs in the previous volume which are adapted to the minstrel type of singing are Railroad Bill, Lilly, Stagolee, Eddy Jones,[78] and some of the more recently composed religious types.

One of the most attractive of all the Negro songs we have heard was That Liar, sung by two elderly Negro men at Columbia, South Carolina, through the courtesy of Dr. E. L. C. Adams. The main part of the song is always chanted by the leader in recitative sing-song very much after the fashion of a sermon when the minister has reached his emotional climax. Then upon reaching the chorus, he suddenly turns into rapid song, accompanied by his companion. They sing the chorus with the usual accompaniment of “Oh” or “Lawd” or “Let me tell you.” The song, with some variations and repetitions, is good for almost an hour’s entertainment. It is also a very good shouting song.