It introduced a popular dance of the same name with "Folks in Georgia's 'bout to go insane."

It became a ragtime, pop, and traditional jazz standard, and has been recorded hundreds of times.

[1] Around the same time the song came out, the expression "ballin' the jack" was used by railroad workers to mean "going at full speed."

The composer and entertainer Perry Bradford claimed to have seen the dance steps performed around 1909[3][4] and they are similar to the shimmy which has black African origins.

[5][6] The dance moves were standardized in the Savoy Ballroom, and put to music by Smith and Burris in 1913.