Born for Hard Luck

A portrait of the last Black medicine-show performer, Arthur "Peg Leg Sam" Jackson, with brilliant harmonica songs, tales of hoboing, buck dances, and an authentic live medicine-show performance filmed at a North Carolina county fair in 1972.

As seen in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's romantic Gallic comedy 'Amelie' which swept the European Film Awards for 2001 winning the Best Film, Best Director, and the Best Cinematographer Awards. 

Between the Civil War and World War II, many such gifted and restless young black musicians found careers in the traveling patent-medicine shows, a favorite entertainment in the rural and small-town South. They sang and recited comic routines and danced to attract a crowd for the pitchman and his sales of wonder-cure "snake oil."

Born for Hard Luck includes highlights from Peg Leg Sam's performance at a North Carolina county fair in 1972, the only film record of a live medicine show. It gives excerpts from his comic routines, a mock chanted sermon, "toasts," folktales, three "buck dances," and his brilliant harmonica playing and singing of "Reuben Train," "Greasy Greens," "Hand Me Down," "Who Left My Backdoor Running," and "Froggie Went A-Courting."

Produced by Tom Davenport for Davenport Films and the
Curriculum in Folklore at UNC - Chapel Hill with Dan Patterson and Allen Tullos.

Film, images and audio are copyright by Tom Davenport and Davenport Films. No commercial or for profit use is allowed without permission.

Related Medicine Show Links
• The director of Born for Hard Luck, Tom Davenport, made a children's feature "Willa: An American Snow White" that includes a medicine show. The Willa web site includes a section on medicine shows.
• Medicine Show project from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Journalism School draws on rare medicine show footage and information from the Southern Historical Collection.
• You can get a guide, the complete transcription of the film with notes, and information on ordering this video and others in the Traditional Culture series at the Davenport Films site.

Sample transcript from the film:

Peg performs 'Froggy Went A-Courting" in Whiteheads store, near his home in Union County, South Carolina.

Now Froggy went a-courting and he did ride, mm-hm
(Bad Frog!)
Oh the Froggy went a-courting and he did ride, unh-hunh
(Oh yes)
Froggy went a-courting and he did ride--
Sword and shield hanging by his side, unh-hunh, mm-hm
(That's the truth too, brother)
Ah, he rode up by Miss Mousie's door, uhn-hunh
Now there come Freddy. That's the truth, though)
Oh, he rode up by Miss Mousie's door, unh-hunh
(Bad Frog!)
Oh the Froggy went a-courting and he did ride, unh-hunh
(Oh yes)
Froggy went a-courting and he did ride--
Sword and shield hanging by his side, unh-hunh, mm-hm
(That's the truth too, brother)
Ah, he rode up by Miss Mousie's door, uhn-hunh
(Now there come Freddy. That's the truth, though)
Oh, he rode up by Miss Mousie's door, unh-hunh
Rode up by Miss Mousie's door--
Place he'd been many times before, unh-hunh
Hey, Miss Mousie, will you marry me? unh-hunh
(Lord, old Freddy)
Hey, Miss Mousie, will you marry me? unh-hunh
Hey, Miss Mousie, will you marry me--
Be as good to you as anybody can be, unh-hunh
(Lord, Freddy)
Without my uncle's consent, unh-hunh
Without my uncle's consent, unh-hunh

Peg: Everything comes backwards to a man, you know. When I was a little boy and baby, women used to pick me up and kiss me. "Ain't he the beautiful, oh my!" Schoolteachers and things. "Oh, my, ain't he beautiful." You know what they do when I got to be a man? "That old thing, ain't he ugly, the ugliest thing." They'd turn their head off of me when they'd see me, yeah... (Song resumes) Long come a bumble bee, unh-hunh Long come a bumble bee, unh-hunh Long come a bumble bee-- He done the peg-leg dance with a peg-leg flea, unh-hunh (Yeah, that's the truth) Anybody ask you who sung this song, unh-hunh Anybody ask you who sung this song, unh-hunh Anybody ask you who sung this song-- Tell 'em Peg Leg Sam done told a lie, and he long gone, mm-hm.