Angelina Baker

Angelina Baker as written by Stephen Foster. This was a minstrel show tune performed by Christy’s Minstrels. It is always touchy to perform a song whose subject matter deals with slavery. I offer it with the utmost respect and reverence. It is a chapter in the American story. As I interpret it, it is a touching story of an old slave, who, in his younger years fell in love with the beautiful Angelina Baker. At the story’s end she is sold to another plantation and he is left to weep, but taking solace in playing his old jawbone. Note: The jawbone, a popular percussion instrument, was made by drying the jawbone of a donkey. With the flesh gone the teeth rattle when struck with a stick, and the side of the mandible can be rubbed with the stick to produce a kind of snare like sound.