\u201cSugar Babe\u201d\u00a0by\u00a0Mance\u00a0Lipscomb was made in 1960. This song is\u00a0definitely in\u00a0the blues style of the 60s\u00a0. All\u00a0of the information I have found about\u00a0Mance\u00a0is very little but all saying the same thing. Every website says that he was a farmer that would play music on the weekends.\u00a0He would call himself a \u201cSongster\u201d rather than a blues artist.\u00a0A songster is \u201ca musician who is both performer and inventor and harks back to the time when every Southern town had its songster, a man who was virtually in charge of the community\u2019s social life.\u201d\u00a0I did find information on\u00a0Mance\u2019s\u00a0father.\u00a0Mance\u2019s\u00a0father was born and\u00a0raised\u00a0in Alabama. I could not find any information about his mother.\u00a0His father would play the fiddle on Saturdays.\u00a0Mance\u00a0learned guitar\u00a0by\u00a0the age of 15 and would play with his father.\u00a0\u00a0Mance\u00a0was discovered when Chris\u00a0Strachwitz\u00a0and Mack McCormick traveled through\u00a0Navaosta. They went to whoever they found and asked who the best singer was. And they all said,\u00a0Mance. He was discovered in his late 60s and traveled around the United States, after releasing a few albums.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since Mance was discovered in his 60s, I think the song is more of a product of things Mance knew. I think this song could be related to in the 60s but I feel like most people would not know what he was talking. For example, he says \u201cWhupped my baby till she Buzzard Lope!\u201d. When I listened to the song, I had no idea what he was talking about so I looked it up. Buzzard Lope is a West African dance that was created in the 1890s. The information I found said the dance was brought over during the slave trade and was popular in Georgia. Since the dance was brought over from Africa, it would make since that there is some Texan history related to it. Navaosta is close to the shore. With that being said, it was a big cotton farming area and had slaves to work. Something else Mance talked about was \u201cwhupped\u201d. Which is his way of saying whipped. I think growing up where he did, he saw what the slave owners and slaves would do throughout the day. I think that did influence his songs because it was how he grew up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n