Mojo: derivation and meaning?

Wordsmith.org

I see this word used in many places, and from context can infer some meaning. But where did this word come from? Is it an acronym of some kind? Any and all information on derivation, meaning, and use would be very welcome. Thanks.

Hi Charlando, mojo meaning black magic is derived from one of the African languages spoken by black slaves who ended up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins and others popularlized the term through their jump blues in the fifties. Click and listen...

http://gofish.about.com/detail.html?gfid=11-6663357

While Wikipedia is not necessarily the best source of information on all topics, it does have a good article on mojo including its origins and uses.

Mojo

Themilum,if my memory works well(???)I think it was you who pointed attention to the following in the "Women talk thrice as much as men"or something like that thread. (Can't find the old thread):

"Poignant lyics from the greatest harmonica player since the Southland gave birth to the blues - the great but late - Sonny boy Willamson "

Wanna tell you I've got it for Christmas and that harmonica does not just sing , it really speaks! Good voice , great lyrics!

> I've got it for Christmas

Milo's work here is done.

Quote:

> I've got it for Christmas

Milo's work here is done.

Ah yes, etaoin, it is good to share the small joys of this world with others.

But I am not done here. Not until I tell Branshea that "Sonny Boy" was a friend of mine. I sang while he played his harmonica in the back seat of a 1948 Dodge as we rode from the liquor store over to Big Mary's, back in nineteen and fifty-nine.

For several years after, "Sonny Boy" would phone me whenever he was in town and I would gather up a group of my blues loving teen-age white friends and we would descend enmasse upon a dirt floor colored-only beer joint called "Will Lewis's Place" where he played when he was on the skids in Birmingham.

I have some interesting memories of those visits.

Now I'm done.

This story defenitly adds special flavor to the new CD. I will listen to it thinking : 'Someone I do not really know has been sitting in this man's 1948 Dodge !'

Nice story, thanks for adding.

For the record it was not Sonny Boy's 1948 Dodge. It was Tank Younger's.

Tank, Pal Al, and me were riding Sonny Boy here and there around Birmingham because wheels are faster than heels and Sonny Boy didn't have no car.

Quote:

For the record it was not Sonny Boy's 1948 Dodge. It was Tank Younger's.

Tank, Pal Al, and me were riding Sonny Boy here and there around Birmingham because wheels are faster than heels and Sonny Boy didn't have no car.

For the lesson I should learn from this : To learn to read before I start to learn a foreign language.
Of course he can't have been been driving that car when he was
playing his harmonica in the back seat.

Birmingham , Birmingham? Greatest City in Alabam? Randy Newman?

(sorry for running this thread off track) I'm gone

Back to topic: this Wiki- link is interesting information. Then mojo is some kind of voodoo article ? The list of songs from blues to Steely Dan and the list of English words from African origin are nice to look through. I have an African (Congo)foster son, who's mother(also here in the country) often prepared African dinners. One of the favored ingredients was ngombo (gumbo)
My foster son's name: Ngoma Mbambi. According to his father Mbambi indeed means 'deer'. Has Walt Disney (or who is the writer of the story?) directly taken this from the African language?

I also noticed the word buckra ,which much have changed to bakra in Surinam's papiamento. Bakra meaning 'white man'/ ''white skin'.