Midweek Music Break: Dr. John, “Iko Iko”

At the time this post goes up, The Missus and I will be in or awfully darned close to New Orleans. For an occasion like this, who could be better to Midweek-Music-Break with than Dr. John — practically the latter-day musical voice of the Crescent City?

As quoted on Wikipedia, here’s Dr. John’s description of today’s selection:

The song was written and recorded back in the early 1950s by a New Orleans singer named James Crawford [JES: photo at right] who worked under the name of Sugar Boy & the Cane Cutters… Also in the group were Professor Longhair on piano, Jake Myles, Big Boy Myles, Irv Bannister on guitar, and Eugene ‘Bones’ Jones on drums. The group was also known as the Chipaka Shaweez. The song was originally called “Jockamo,” and it has a lot of Creole patois in it. Jockamo 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 line” in their own special style during Mardi Gras. That’s dead and gone because there’s a freeway where those grounds used to be. The tribes were like social clubs who lived all year for Mardi Gras, getting their costumes together. Many of them were musicians, gamblers, hustlers and pimps.

(Regarding that “second line” reference: you might want to refer back to a post from about a year ago, on Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Down Home Girl”; it uses the phrase, in a context which I completely misunderstood… until Froog set me straight in a comment.)

The spelling of the word “Iko” seems consistent across various interpretations of the lyrics. More troublesome is “Jockamo,” which sometimes appears that way, sometimes as “Jockomo,” sometimes with and sometimes without hyphens… I don’t know what’s right.

We are, however, considering eating at Wednesday night at a restaurant in the Uptown district of New Orleans, called… Jacques Imo’s. Clever, wot?

[Lyrics (in a transcription which doesn’t quite correspond with Dr. John’s rendition above)]

“Iko Iko” also provided the ’60s girl group The Dixie Cups (“Chapel of Love”) with a minor hit, in 1965:

[Below, click Play button to begin Iko Iko. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:04 long.]

Wikipedia, again, on the way this recording came together:

[Group member] Barbara Hawkins had heard her grandmother sing the song… “We were just clowning around with it during a session using drumsticks on ashtrays. We didn’t realize that Jerry and Mike had the tapes running”. Leiber and Stoller overdubbed a bassline and percussion, and released it. It was The Dixie Cups’ fifth and last hit.

One kind soul has posted a rare (?) clip of The Dixie Cups performing “Iko Iko” on a TV show… yes, complete with clicky-clicky drumsticks.