The Black Joak
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"The Black Joak", also known as "Black Joker", "Black Jack", "Black Jake",<br> "Black Jock", "The Black Joke", "But the House and Ben the House" (Shetland),<br> "Coal-Black Joak", "The Scottish Lovers" or "Sprig of Shillelah" is an English,<br> Scottish, Irish and Shetlands country dance, jig and morris dance tune in 6/8 time<br> and G Major (Aird, Bacon, Carlin, Cooke, Mallinson, O'Farrell, Raven, Sumner,<br> Thompson, Vickers) or A Major (Bacon, Gow, Merryweather & Seattle, O'Flannagan).<br> The parts are played AB (Bacon {Stanton Harcourt}, Gow, Thompson), AAB (Aird,<br> Bacon {Ilmington}, Carlin, Cooke (two versions), Mallinson {Adderbury version}),<br> AABB (Hall & Stafford, Mallinson {Bledington version}, Merryweather & Seattle,<br> Raven, Sumner, Vickers) and AABBCCDDEE (O'Farrell).<br> "The Black Joke" was a widely popular street song in England in the early 1700's.<br> It is irregular in form in many versions, its opening phrase has six measures, while<br> the second has ten. The initial phrase in this Adderbury version brings to mind the sea chantey<br> "Row, Bullies, Row".<br> There is a suggestion, however, that the tune began in Dublin as the vehicle for a<br> ballad opera. It was published on a song-sheet c. 1720 with the title "The Original<br> Black Joke Sent from Dublin" and subsequently was included as "Coal-Black Joak" in<br> the popular and successful The Beggar's Wedding: A New Opera, as it is acted at the<br> Theatre in Dublin with Great Applause and at the Theatre in the Hay-market (1729). <br> Early English printed collections (from London publishers) that contain the tune are<br> Walsh's Third Collection of Lancashire Jiggs, Hornpipes, Joaks, etc. (c. 1730),<br> Walsh's Twenty Four Dances for the Year 1730, Johnson's Wrights Compleat Collection<br> of Celebrated Country Dances, vol. 1 (1742) and Charles and Samuel<br> Thompson's 200 Country Dances volume II (1765).<br> It was included in the first volume of Allan Ramsay's popular Tea-Table Miscellany (1730).<br> It is played today as the tune for the Lichfield Morris Dance called "The Barefooted<br> Quaker" and for dances from other morris traditions. Mallinson's morris dance tune<br> versions, for example, are from the Adderbury and Bledington areas of England's<br> Cotswolds, while Bacon's are from the Adderbury, Ascot-under-Wychwood, Bledington,<br> Ilmington, and Stanton Harcourt.<br> It was printed sources in<br> Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 2 (1785)<br> (appears as "Black Jock"),<br> Bacon's A Handbook of Morris Dances (1974),<br> Carlin's The Master Collection of Dance Music for Violin (1984),<br> Cooke's The Fiddle Tradition of the Shetland Isles (1986),<br> Gow's Complete Repository, Part 4 (1817) (appears as "Black Jock"),<br> Hall & Stafford's Charlton Memorial Tune Book (1956) (appears as "Black Jack"),<br> Johnson's Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century (1984),<br> Kirkpatrick's John Kirkpatrick's English Choice (2003),<br> Laybourn's Köhler's Violin Repository, vol. 3 (1885),<br> Mallinson's Mally's Cotswold Morris Book, vol. 1 (1988),<br> Merryweather & Seattle's Lawrence Leadley, the Fiddler of Helperby (1994),<br> O'Farrell's Pocket Companion, vol. 2 (c. 1806),<br> Offord's John of the Green: Ye Cheshire Way (1985),<br> O'Flannagan's Hibernia Collection (1860),<br> Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 7 (1760),<br> Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984) (Black Jack),<br> Seattle/Vickers's Great Northern Tune Book, part 2 (1987),<br> Sumner's Lincolnshire Collections, vol. 1: The Joshua Gibbons Manuscript (1997),<br> Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, vol. 2 (1765),<br> Samuel, Anne & Peter Thompson's The Hibernian Muse (1787),<br> Walsh's Complete Country Dancing-Master, Volume the Fourth (1740) and<br> Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances, vol. 1 (1740).<br> It was recorded by Barry Phillips on The World Turned Upside Down (1992),<br> Chris Bartram (et al) on The Traditional Morris Dance Music Album and<br> John Kirkpatrick on Plain Capers (1976).<br>
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