Did you know there were black folksongs in aural tradition? Slavery lasted from 1619 to 1863. Black musicians would sometimes improvise lyrics. Over time some of the favorite verses were committed to memory. These were likely used as early ragtime content in the 1880s.
By the 1820s, white singers were exposed to black music, becoming interested in and inspired by it. Whites wanted to imitate what they heard. In many cases blacks would teach them. Whites borrowed black characters and humorous lyrics for their own entertainment purposes. The black lyrics were probably lifted out of African-American folk songs by enterprising whites. In this way black and white music got mixed up.
As a fiddle player I encountered floating song lyrics. These can be substituted in many songs and are sometimes sung to fiddle tunes. Some of these are in black dialect.
“The first time that I saw her
She was standin’ in the door,
Her shoes and stockings in her hand,
Her feet all over the floor.”
Examples of songs with floating lyrics in the 19th and 20th centuries are Old Joe Clark, (Get Along Home) Cindy, Boil Them Cabbage Down, Cumberland Gap, Cripple Creek, Sally Goodin’, Cotton-Eyed Joe, Old Molly Hare. There are certainly many others that can be found in rural areas, especially in the southern United States.
When I found the book “Popular Songs of Nineteenth Century America” compiled by Richard Jackson, I noticed several published sheet music songs like this. Some of those are: Down in Alabam’ (The Old Grey Mare), Jim Crack Corn, Old Dan Tucker, Oh Susanna, Golden Slippers, Shew Fly Don’t Bother Me. This reveals that much folk material was incorporated into the minstrel show. Likewise, much music used in the minstrel show became generally familiar due to repetition and resulting popularity.