"Whoop Jamboree/Jonny Boker" (Old Johnny Booker) by Joel Walker Sweeney, at Batteaux and Banjos 2023
Channel: Barrow Wheary
Date: 2024-02-10

"Whoop Jamboree" comes from Phil Rice's 1858 Banjo Method and is an remarkable example of decidedly African cadences and melodic patterns in early banjo music. "Jonny Boker, or de Broken Yoke in de Coaling Ground" by Joel Walker Sweeney, published 1840, popularly known to as Old Johnny Booker, survived in versions played by older fiddlers and banjo players across the South. No other song was more closely associated with Joel Walker Sweeney. Buckley's 1859 Banjo Instructor gives the tune simply as "Joe Sweeney's Jig." The lyrics tell of a hard journey by wagon on the road to Lynchburg from Sweeney's home area in Buckingham County, Virginia (now part of Appomattox County) and makes mention of specific, historically traceable names and places in the Virginia countryside which you can still find today. Songs like Jonny Boker give evidence of the direct influence of authentic Southern, and especially African American, musical traditions on the early minstrel stage. 

Performed at Batteaux and Banjos, James River State Park, Buckingham County, Virginia, June 17, 2023. "Jonny Boker" is

James Pentecost: tambourine
Mark Weems: tambourine
Barrow Wheary: banjo
Caroline Wheary: fiddle

Batteaux and Banjos is a living history program celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the James River. It is held yearly at James River State Park in Buckingham County, Virginia to coincide with the James River Batteau Festival. Please visit our website https://hbwhea.wixsite.com/batteaux-and-banjos. We'd love to see you on the river!