Joe Perkins

Joe Perkins was a singer whose song, "Little Eeefin' Annie", was a minor hit in 1963, reaching #76 on the Billboard chart. The song featured eefer Jimmie Riddle. He died in the Cumberland river, which he sang about in "Uncle Eeef".

'Eeef' could possibly relate to 'Eeep', as the native African languages left a distinctive pronunciation pattern upon the English spoken by Americanized Africans. This may have been in part an inspiration to Jerry Garcia to write the song "Eep Hour" and may also have been at least a partial inspiration for The Grateful Dead song "Cumberland Blues".   Wikipedia