And Dancing Dolls Too!

At the turn of the 20th Century, Liverpool boasted a Black street performer called Seth Davy, his surname sometimes spelled Davey. No one’s recorded in public records with either name and that vagueness led to the assumption the character was imaginary, though many Liverpudlians claimed to have seen him in person. He was from the Caribbean, probably Jamaica, and was hugely popular, not least for his “dancing dolls” - tiny figurines at the end of wooden plank and, when the plank was struck with a hammer, they’d vibrate (dance). One of the songs in Davy’s repertoire was Massa Was a Stingy Man, which he got from an American minstrel performer. The lyrics were "Sing come day, go day, God send Sunday, We'll drink whiskey all de week And buttermilk on Sunday". His humble life notwithstanding, Davy was immortalized in a 1968 song that remained on the Irish top ten for 10 weeks. You may know it already.