Iko Iko

This is based on a New Orleans folk melody commonly used for celebrations like parades. The "Jock-a-mo fee-na-nay" chorus, so central to the song's refrain, is a subject of long debate. Scholars have proposed various linguistic origins, suggesting, alternately, that it the phrase is Native American, West African, or a creolization of those languages with New Orleans French. Hypotheses about its meaning range from "Kiss my ass" to "Very good" to "The fool will not play today."

The Dixie Cups were a black female trio from New Orleans made up of Barbara Hawkins, her sister Rosa Hawkins, and their cousin Joan Marie Johnson. They were discovered by singer/producer Joe Jones at a high school talent show. In 1964 they had a US #1 single with "Chapel Of Love" for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's Red Bird Label. It had originally been written for The Ronettes, but both they and The Crystals failed to score with the song. They failed to have any more hits after "Iko Iko" and in 1966 they disbanded. And about that other "Dixie" trio that popped up in the '90s: the Dixie-Cups got their name from a brand of disposable drinking cup, while the Dixie Chicks were named after the Little Feat song "Dixie Chicken."

In 1953, James "Sugar Boy" Crawford recorded an R&B song for Chess Records with his group The Cane Cutters entitled "Jock-a-Mo." Given that Crawford's song is based on similar New Orleans celebratory ritual sources, including traditional songs from Mardi Gras parades, its closeness to the Dixie Cups' tune is striking. In fact, Crawford sued the Dixie Cups for ownership of the material, eventually settling for a percentage of performance royalties in 1967. The legal battle was a curious one, given that both recordings essentially culled variations on popular folk materials, and effectively, "Iko Iko" and "Jock-a-mo" appear almost interchangeably in recordings by later artists. (Dr. John, for instance, has performed and recorded the song under both titles, singing variant verses but always using the same "Jock-a-mo fee-na-nay" chorus.