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Log in or register to post comments. Custom Sidebar. Listen on Spotify. Display on homepage featured list. Homepage Feature blurb. Homepage Feature title. Custom Teaser. Feature type. Greatest Stories Ever Told. Composer and title spelling James "Sugarboy" Crawford had the earliest known recording of "Iko Iko," released as "Jockamo," but he didn't write it.
It was an old Mardi Gras Indian chant. His adaptation is great, though. As to the Deadhead alternate spelling, it's from a Rick Griffin page from the heyday of "underground comix. Iko Iko here's some notes on the song I posted in rec. John's Gumbo and from a Sugar Boy Crawford album. From: grantg terrapin. John album - "Dr. This group was also known as the Cipaka Shaweez. The song was originally called 'Jockomo' and it has a lot of Creole patois in it. Jockomo means 'jester' in the old myth.
It is Mardi Gras music, and the Shaweez was one of many Mardi Gras groups who dressed up in far out Indian costumes and came on as Indian tribes. The tribes used to hang out on Claiborne Avenue and used to get juiced up there getting ready to perform and 'second time' in their own special style during Mardi Gras. That's dead and gone now because there's a freeway where those grounds used to be. The tribes were like social clubs who lived all year for Mardi Gras.
Many of them were musicians, gamblers, hustlers and pimps. John's Gumbo is an aligator records re-issue of an Atlantic album copyright produced by Jerry Wexler and Harold Battiste an absolutely essential record!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He grew up on Lasalle Street in the uptown section of the city.
James Crawford was born in New Orleans on October 12, This neighborhood was the home territory of many of the Mardi Gras Indian tribes whose percussive rhythms and chants were to have a strong influence on Sugar Boy's style.
By the time he was 12 years old he had taught himself to play piano by listening to greats like Paul Gayten and Fats Washington at the Dew Drop Inn where he had to sneak in the back door since he was underage. By he had formed his own band composed entirely of his classmates and neighborhood friends. No less an authority than Dr. John says Jockomo is a jester. A linguist familiar with Native American trade languages says that chockema feena means "very good" in a now-extinct jargon.
What does Iko Iko mean? Why would it be so difficult to track down the meaning of a song heard and sung by millions? For a start, New Orleans is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, let alone the United States. As Dr. John says, it's a place where "Nothing is purely itself but becomes part of one funky gumbo. It's clear from even casual comparison that the song has deep and direct African musical roots.
This again is hardly surprising for New Orleans, but some cases are more obvious than others Louis Armstrong's classic What a Wonderful World seems less obviously African-influenced. It also pretty clear that the rhythms came to the Mardi Gras Indians by way of the Caribbean, in particular Haiti, whose Kata rhythms are clearly similar compare this and this , for example.
The origins of a tune aren't necessarily the same as the origins of its lyrics, but it's not implausible that the Mardi Gras Indians' chants are also Caribbean in origin. The two translations given above, different though they are, both accord with that general backdrop. The first, based on notes unfortunately lost in the Storm along with so many other cultural treasures, uses a mixture of Yoruba West African and Creole French.
By he had formed his own band composed entirely of his classmates and neighborhood friends. They named their instrumental theme "Chapaka Shawee" which were the only words of Cajun French they could remember from early childhood.
Since the group did not have a name Dr. Daddy-O dubbed them the Chapaka Shaweez. That was five dollars for the whole band, not five dollars each. And we were happy because we didn't know what was going on. We went a couple of blocks away and bought us some red beans and rice and got us some wine and that was it. In fact, I didn't know the record was going to be released. Nobody did, really.
We made that record in the studio of radio station WMRY. We used to rehearse after hours at the station. One day Leornard Chess was in there and he said he'd like to hear something that we had made up. So we did a couple of numbers and when we finished he said "I might have a surprise for you.
So I thought maybe he was coming back later to record me, but about a month later the disc jockey, Ernie The Whip, called me to come to the station.
And I hadn't even signed a contract. While looking at all the information turned up in the ten or so posts in this thread, I wonder how people ever did research or learned things before the internet. Think about it: If you couldn't use the internet, how would you go about finding out about the meaning of that song in a reasonable amount of time?
Libraries Phone calls to librarians, professionals in fields, teachers, etc. For example: We used to call the Police station all the time with inquiries about legal questions. This is especially rare information though, even on the internet, so it would have been tough. We still don't know much, but at least I know why we don't know much.
I find that quite amusing, as an interesting coincidence. Kaye is a rebel who impersonates a jester to gain access to the king's court. The jester is named Giacomo pronounced Jockomo. Take that old old version and hang it.
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