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Old Dan Tucker
Old-Time and Bluegrass Song and Breakdown; Very Widely Known; Attributed to Daniel Decatur Emmett; Roud #390
ARTIST: "Composed by Dan D. Emmet, and sung by him with unbounded applause in Howe's Amphitheatre of the Republic, New York." Page 622 in "Marsh's Selection, or Singing For the Million, Containing the Choicest and Best Collection of Admired Patriotic, Comic, Irish, Negro, Temperance, and Sentimental Songs Ever Embodied in One Work." Three volumes in one, New York, Richard Marsh, 374 Pearl Street, 1854. Reproduced in Newman I. White, 1928, American Negro Folk Songs, pp. 446-447 (1965 reprint). Some verses borrowed from Negro song, some Negro folk song verses were borrowed from Emmett. A complete version of a minstrel song. Note: Spelling preserved.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: 1841; Printed first in 1843; First recorded Harry C. Browne in 1916;
RECORDING INFO: Harry C. Browne "Old Dan Tucker" (Columbia A1999, 1916); Fiddlin' John Carson, "Old Dan Tucker" (OKeh 40263, 1925; rec. 1924); Pat Ford, "Old Dan Tucker" [fragment] (AFS A 4211 B2, 1939; in AMMEM/Cowell); Al Hopkins & his Buckle Busters, "Old Dan Tucker" (Brunswick 295, 1929; rec. 1928); Uncle Dave Macon, "Old Dan Tucker" (Vocalion 15033, 1925); Pete Seeger, "Old Dan Tucker" (on PeteSeeger17); Judge Sturdy's Orchestra "Old Dan Tucker" (Victor 20102, 1926; rec. 1925); Gid Tanner & his Skillet Lickers, "Old Dan Tucker" (Columbia 15382-D, 1929) Brand, Oscar. Laughing America, Tradition TLP 1014, LP (195?), cut#A.02; Frazier, Nathan; and Frank Patterson. Altamont: Black Stringband Music from the Library of Congress, Rounder 0238, LP (1989), cut# 1 (Dan Tucker); Hanks, Larry. 1977 Northwest Folklife Festival, Voyager VTLP-101, LP (1977), cut# 3c; Hanks, Larry. Tying a Knot in the Devil's Tail, Long Sleeve LS 104, LP (1982), cut#B.06b; Harmon, Austin. Library of Congress Banjo Collection, Rounder 0237, LP (1988), cut# 7; Harold and Abe. Sweet Sunny South, Heritage (Galax) 043, LP, cut# 8; Hinton, Sam. Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts, Scholastic SC 7530, LP (1964), cut#A.07; Homer and the Barnstormers. Blue Grass Banjos - Flaming Banjos, Alshire 2-120-1/2, LP (197?), cut#1B.05; Houston, Cisco. Cisco Houston - A Legacy, Disc D 103, LP (1964), cut# 12 (Dan Tucker); Houston, Cisco. Cisco Special, Vanguard VSD-2042, LP (196?), cut#B.01; Ives, Burl. Burl Ives Sings for Fun, Decca DL 8248, LP (195?), cut#A.05; Lawson, Clorine. I Kind of Believe It's A Gift, Meriweather Meri 1001-2, LP (198?), cut# 16; Maxson, Charles; and Karen Skidmore. From the Heartland of West Virginia. The Hammered & Plucked Dul, Peaceable 4, LP (1975), cut# 21; Osborne, Uncle Charlie (Charlie N.). Relics and Treasures, June Appal JA 0049, LP (1985), cut# 15 (Dan Tucker); Price, Truman; and Jane Keefer. Songs and Tunes of the Oregon Trail, True West TW C-21, Cas (1991), cut# 8; Stover, Don; & the White Oak Mountain Boys. West Virginia Coal Miner Blues, Old Homestead 90011, LP (197?), cut# 6; Summers, John W. (Dick). Indiana Fiddler, Rounder 0194, LP (1984), cut# 8; Tucker, George. George Tucker, Rounder 0064, LP (1976), cut# 9; Ungar, Jay; and Lynn Hardy. Steamboat Coming, National Geographic Soc. 07787, LP (1976), cut# 5; Document DOCD 8041, The Hill Billies/Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 3” (reissue). Document DOCD 8058, The Skillet Lickers (reissue). Musical Traditions MTCD321-2, Dan Tate – “Far in the Mountains, vols. 1 & 2” (2002). Old Homestead CD 4184, Uncle Dave Macon (reissue). Rounder 0194, John W. Summers - "Indiana Fiddler" (1984). Rounder CD 0238, Nathan Frazier & Frank Patterson. Originally recorded 1942). Rounder CD 1827, Golden Gate Quartet.
RELATED TO: Ole Bull and Dan Tucker; Johnny Booker; Walk Along John
OTHER NAMES: Dan Tucker; Get off the Track; Rum a Dum Dum; Striking a Lead; Rumadum Dum; Captain Dime (Talley);
SOURCES/PRINT: American Ballads and Folk Songs, MacMillan, Bk (1934), p.258; Traditional Music in America, Folklore Associates, Bk (1940/1965), p 55c; Traditional Music in America, Folklore Associates, Bk (1940/1965), p412; Unknown. Sweet Bunch of Daisies, Colonial Press, Bk (1991), p 94; Collins, W. S.. Fiddle Book, Oak, Bk (1967), p 74; Herren, Ruth Burton. Sweet Bunch of Daisies, Colonial Press, Bk (1991), p 96 Randolph 521, "Old Dan Tucker" (3 texts plus 2 excerpts, 1 tune); Randolph-Legman I, pp. 431-433, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 tune, 3 texts); BrownIII 509, "Nigger in the Woodpile" (1 two-line fragment, probably this though the vulgar idiom of the title is obviously common to many songs); BrownIII 82, "Old Dan Tucker" (6 texts); Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 188, (no title) (2 fragments, one clearly this and the other a Dan Tucker stanza but with "Ole Aunt Dinah" in Dan's place); also p. 199, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 text, with a verse from this song though it has a chorus about "Sambo") Brewster 86, "Old Dan Tucker" (4 short text); Fuson, p. 163, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 text); Meredith/Anderson, p. 263, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 fragment, 1 tune); RJackson-19CPop, pp. 160-162, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 text, 1 tune); Lomax-FSUSA 27, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 text, 1 tune); Lomax-ABFS, pp. 258-262, "Old Dan Tucker" (2 texts, 1 tune); PSeeger-AFB, p. 52, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 text, 1 tune) Silber-FSWB, p. 240, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 text); Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 81, "Old Dan Tucker" (1 text) D Major (Thede): G Major (Bayard, Ford, Ruth): C Major (Bayard, Buarchenal). Standard or AEf#c# (Thede). AB (Burchenal, Ruth): AABB (Bayard, Ford, Thede); American Veteran Fifer, 1927; No. 112. Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 189A-B, pg. 145. Burchenal, 1918; pg. 10 (appears as "Virginia Reel" [1]). Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; pg. 55 (lyrics on page 412). Howe (School for the Violin) 1851, pg. 43. Ruth (Pioneer Western Folk Tunes), 1948; No. 39, pg. 15. Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; pg. 74-75.
SOURCES/ON-LINE: Ceolas; Folk Index; Mudcat DT; From Wikipedia; Traditional Ballad Index;
NOTES: One of the popular minstrel tunes attributed to Daniel Decatur Emmett. According to his biographer, H. Ogden Wintermute: "I composed Old Dan Tucker in 1830 or 1831, when I was fifteen or sixteen years old." It is more likely that Emmett arranged the tune from existing sources like the similar earlier minstrel song called "Walk Along John" or "Oh, Come Along John." It is generally attributed to Emmett and is considered his first important song.
“Bayard (1981) states that the origins of the tune are unclear, but that the tune predates its mid-19th century American minstrel lyrics, variously credited to Dan Emmett (1815-1904), Henry Russell, and {in a version called "Gwine To De Mill"} to J.R. Jenkins. It is said that Emmett first performed his song “Old Dan Tucker” at the age of fifteen during a Fourth of July celebration on the village green in his hometown of Mount Vernon, Ohio. Nathan, in his Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy (1962), documents that Emmett taught the tune to the other three Virginia Minstrels in 1843, and that it became an instant hit. However, Old Dan Tucker was more than a song, but was a role that was acted out on stage by Emmett. Various minstrel-era publications printed different sets of words, sometimes as political satire.” Kuntz
A popular tune throughout the 19th century and into the next, and is mentioned fairly frequently in publications. Several fiddle-players have said the “Old Dan Tucker” was the first tune that they learned to play, according to Mike Yates (2002). It was recorded on a dance card as a square dance played at a "Grand Select Quadrille at City Hall, Lima, Ohio, on Thursday Evening, Jan. 13th, 1870,” and “Old Dan Tucker” was given as one of the "category" tunes played in an 1899 Gallatin, Tenn., fiddle contest—the fiddler who played the best rendition won a prize (C. Wolfe, The Devil's Box, vol. 14, No. 4, 12/1/80). The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Burchenal prints a circle dance of the same name to the tune, and Ford (1940, pg. 207) also prints a dance called "Old Dan Tucker." Indeed, Paul Tyler reports that Old Dan Tucker is the name of a square dance figure—“It's something like the Nine-Pin Reel, a 4-couple square dance with one extra dancer in the middle”—with the active male dancer being known as the ‘Tucker’.
“Old Dan Tucker” was in both white and black musical traditions. It was recorded in 1942 from the playing of Nathan Frazier and Frank Patterson, fiddle and banjo players from Tennessee, and it was recorded for the Library of Congress in 1940 by the African-American Golden Gate Quartet (from Virginia). A version under the title “Captain Dime” was collected by African-American researcher Thomas Talley and appears in his book Negro Folk Rhymes, new edition edited by Charles Wolfe in 1991. The first stanza is common, although the second is rarer, writes Wolfe; it does appear in Brown (3:117) in Kentucky and North Carolina versions. It goes:
Cappun Dime is a fine w’ite man,
He wash his face in a fry’n’ pan,
He comb his head wid a waggin wheel,
An’ he died with a toothache in his heel.
Cappun Dime is a mighty fine feller,
An’ he sho’ play kyards wid de po' boys in de cellar,
But he will git drunk, an’ he won’t smoke a pipe,
Den he will pull de watermillions ‘fore dey gits ripe.
The following series of paragraphs are taken from Wikipedia: "Old Dan Tucker" sheet music, published by Charles H. Keith of Boston, 1843"Old Dan Tucker", also known as "Ole Dan Tucker", "Dan Tucker", and other variants, is a popular American song. Its origins remain obscure; the tune may have come from the oral tradition, and the words may have been written by songwriter and performer Dan Emmett. The blackface troupe the Virginia Minstrels popularized "Old Dan Tucker" in 1843, and it quickly became a minstrel hit, behind only "Miss Lucy Long" and "Mary Blane" in popularity during the antebellum period. "Old Dan Tucker" entered the folk vernacular around the same time. Today it is a bluegrass and country music standard.
The first sheet music edition of "Old Dan Tucker", published in 1843, is a song of boasts and nonsense in the vein of previous minstrel hits such as "Jump Jim Crow" and "Gumbo Chaff". In exaggerated Black Vernacular English, the lyrics tell of Dan Tucker's exploits in a strange town, where he fights, gets drunk, overeats, and breaks other social taboos. Minstrel troupes freely added and removed verses, and folk singers have since added hundreds more. Parodies and political versions are also known.
The song falls into the idiom of previous minstrel music, relying on rhythm and text declamation as its primary motivation. Its melody is simple and the harmony little developed. Nevertheless, contemporary critics found the song more pleasant than previous minstrel fare. Musicologist Dale Cockrell argues that the song represents a transition between early minstrel music and the more European-style songs of minstrelsy's later years.
"Old Dan Tucker" as originally published exemplifies the masculine boasting songs that predominated in early minstrelsy.[1][2] In a racist form of Black Vernacular English,[3][4] the song uses short, active words such as runnin and cryin, to portray Dan Tucker as a rough-and-ready black man in the mold of Jim Crow, Gumbo Chaff,[5] and ultimately the tall tale frontiersman:[6]
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Old Dan TuckerI come to town de udder night,
I hear de noise an saw de fight,
De watchman was a runnin roun,
Cryin Old Dan Tucker's come to town.
Gran' Chorus.
So get out de way! Get out de way!
Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker.
Your to late to come to supper.
Tucker is an animalistic character, driven by sex, violence, and strong drink. He is ugly, unrefined, and unintelligent.[3] As a stranger in town, his devil-may-care actions show his problems with or ambivalence to adapting to local mores.[7] More broadly, Tucker's disdain for social norms allows the song to send up respectable middle class American society, as evidenced by the final verse:[8]
Tucker was a hardened sinner,
He nebber said his grace at dinner;
De ole sow squeel, de pigs did squall
He 'hole hog wid de tail and all.
Other verses are simply nonsense that does not go along with the main narrative. Their lines seem to serve no other purpose than to make a rhyme or extend the patter scheme.[9] The third verse is one example:
Here's my razor in good order
Magnum bonum -- jis hab bought 'er;
Sheep shell oats, Tucker shell de corn,
I'll shabe you soon as de water get warm.[10]
Dan Tucker is both the teller and subject of the story. Verses 1, 3, and 5 of the 1843 edition are in the first person, whereas verses 2, 4, and 7 are in the third. This reflects the song's intended performance by an entire minstrel troupe. The lead minstrel played Tucker and began the song, but backup singers took over at times to allow Tucker to act out the scenario, dance, or do another comedy bit.[11] There was probably an element of competition to the various dance and music solos.[9] The third-person verses also allowed for commentary to suggest to the audience how they were to judge the character and his antics.[7]
Individual companies probably selectively performed verses from the song or added new ones.[12] For example, the Virginia Serenaders added verses about the Irish, Dutch, and French.[13] A parody called "Clar de Track" appears in some playbills and songsters.[14]
"Old Dan Tucker" entered American folklore soon after it was written. Its simple and malleable nature means that singers may begin or end it at any point or invent new verses on the spot.[15] In fact, hundreds of folk verses have been recorded.[16] This is a common folk variant:
Old Daniel Tucker wuz a mighty man,
He washed his face in a fryin' pan;
Combed his head wid a wagon wheel
And he died wid de toofache in his heel.[17]
A common chorus variant goes:
So, git outa de way for old Dan Tucker,
He's come too late to git his supper.
Supper's over and breakfast cookin',
Old Dan Tucker standin' lookin'.[18]
For decades "Old Dan Tucker" was used as part of a dancing game.[19] The players formed a ring , and one man moved to the center. He selected women to swing around according to the lyrics:
Here's old Dan, he comes to town;
He swings the ladies round and round.
He swings one east, he swings one west,
He swings with the one he loves the best.
The third woman chosen then became his new partner, and her old partner now took the role of "Old Dan".[20]
These folk versions can be quite ribald.[21] This one, recalled by a man from his boyhood in Benton County, Arkansas, in the 1910s, is one example:
Old Dan Tucker was a fine old soul,
Buckskin belly and a rubber ass-hole,
Swallowed a barrel of cider down
And then he shit all over town.[22]
"Old Dan Tucker" entered the folklore of slaves as well. This version from Orange County, North Carolina, was recorded in the 1850s:
Marster and Missus look' might fine—
Gwine to take a journey, gwine whar dey gwine,
Crab grass a-dyin', red sun in de west,
Saturday's comin', nigger gwine to rest.[23]
Political versions: Sheet music cover for "Get off the Track!" by the Hutchinson Family Singers. The original "Old Dan Tucker" and most folk variants are not political in nature.[3] However, as early as 1844, the Hutchinson Family Singers were performing "Get off the Track!" to its tune, billed as "A song for Emancipation"[24] One verse and the chorus say:
Ho! the car Emancipation
Rides majestic thro' our nation,
Bearing on its train the story;
Liberty! a nation's glory.
Get out the way! Every station!
Freedom's car, Emancipation![25]
That same year, supporters of Henry Clay at a Whig rally sang a version that makes references to Clay ("Ole Kentucky"), Martin Van Buren, and James Buchanan:
The people's fav'rite, Henry Clay, is now the 'fashion' of the day;
And let the track be dry or mucky, we'll stake our pile on Ole Kentucky.
Get out of the way, he's swift and lucky; clear the track for
Ole Kentucky![26]
In 1856, supporters of John C. Frémont's run for the Republican Party nomination adopted the tune as his campaign song with the changed refrain "Get out the way, old Buchanan".[27] William Jennings Bryan's campaign song for the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, changed the lyrics to say:[28]
Voters, come and hear my ditty,
What was done at Kansas City:
David Hill, the New York lion,
Nominated Billy Bryan.
Get out of the way, you Grand Old Party,
You're so old, you're getting warty.[29]
A version popular during the American Civil War adds references
to Abraham Lincoln:
Old Abe is coming down to fight,
And put the Democrats to flight;
He's coming with the wedge and maul
And he will split 'em one and all.
Get out the way, you little giant
You can't come in, you're too short and pliant.[30]
"Old Dan Tucker" is a breakdown, a dance song wherein the rhythmic accent falls on the second and fourth beats rather than on the third.[31] The song is largely Anglo-American in nature, although it has black influences. Its melodic idiom matches that of earlier minstrel standards, such as "Jump Jim Crow", "Coal Black Rose", and "Old Zip Coon".[32]
The song consists of 28 bars. It begins with a boisterous eight-bar introduction. Four bars follow to frame the coda. The remainder consists of sixteen bars with lyrics, half devoted to verse, and half to refrain.[32] Each phrase gives way directly to the next with no rests between sections.[33]
Rhythm is perhaps the most important component of "Old Dan Tucker". It begins with a cadenced introduction and little melody.[34] Even when the tune begins in earnest, it is flat and non-harmonized and does little more than provide a beat on which words are uttered.[32][35] The refrain is syncopated in a way that had only previously been used in the minstrel song "Old Zip Coon". The intense rhythm on the line "Get out the way!" generates a forward momentum and is answered by instruments in one example of the song's black-influenced call and response.[33]
"Old Dan Tucker" was, of course, intended for stage performance. The verses are not only to be played but also acted out and danced to. Minstrels could begin leaping about at the introduction and coda, beginning the full music at the vocal section.[33] Performers probably included instrumental versions of the chorus while they played, a rare practice in early minstrelsy.[34]
Musicologist Dale Cockrell argues that "Old Dan Tucker" in fact represents a bridge between the percussive blackface songs of the 1830s and the more refined compositions of songwriters such as Stephen Foster.[35] Cockrell says that, unlike previous minstrel songs, "Old Dan Tucker" is meant for more than just dancing; its tune is developed enough to stand on its own.[36] Contemporary critics certainly noticed the difference. Y. S. Nathanson called it "the best of what I have denominated the ancient negro ballads. The melody is far superior to anything that had preceded it."[37] Nathanson went on to compare the song to works by Gaetano Donizetti and Daniel Auber.
The origin of the music of "Old Dan Tucker" has always been obscure, and no sheet music edition from 1843, its year of its first publication, names a composer. The first performance of the tune (but not lyrics) may have happened as early as 1841.[38] The music may in fact be from the oral tradition or may have been a product of collaboration.[32]
Nevertheless, "Old Dan Tucker" has been credited to at least three different songwriters: Dan Emmett, J. R. Jenkins, and Henry Russell.[39] In his old age, Emmett related the traditional story to his biographer, H. Ogden Wintermute: "I composed Old Dan Tucker in 1830 or 1831, when I was fifteen or sixteen years old."[40] The biography claims that Emmett first played the song in public at a performance by a group of traveling entertainers. They lacked a fiddle player, and the local innkeeper suggested young Emmett to fill in. Emmett played "Old Dan Tucker" to the troupe manager's liking, and he debuted on the village green in blackface to perform the song. Wintermute claims that the name Dan Tucker is a combination of Emmett's own name and that of his dog.[41] However, there is no evidence for any of this.[42] Instead, Emmett may merely have written the words.[38] Even these seem to partially derive from an earlier minstrel song called "Walk Along John" or "Oh, Come Along John", first published in various songsters in the early 1840s.[43] Some verses have clear echoes in versions of "Old Dan Tucker":
Johnny law on de rail road track,
He tied de engine on his back;
He pair's his corn wid a rail road wheel,
It gib 'em de tooth ache in de heel.[44]
The Charles Keith company published "Old Dan Tucker" in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1843.[32] The sheet music credits words to Dan Emmett but says that the song is from "Old Dan Emmit's Original Banjo Melodies".[45] The lack of attribution of the melody may be another sign that Emmett did not write it.[32]
Possible slave origin:
Graveyard where Daniel Tucker is buried, Elbert County, GeorgiaA story dating to at least 1965 claims that "Old Dan Tucker" was written by slaves about a man named Daniel Tucker who lived in Elbert County, Georgia. Tucker was a farmer, ferryman, and minister who appears in records from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The story, as related by Mrs. Guy Rucker, the great-great-granddaughter of one of Tucker's neighbors, claims that Tucker became quite well liked by the slaves in his area through his ministry to them.[46]
According to this interpretation, the lyrics address Tucker directly. The chorus, "You're too late to get your supper" is a kindhearted taunt to a man who often arrived after dark, forcing his hosts to scrap up a meal for him.[46] The song's occasional lewdness is explained by the natural impromptu nature of its supposed origin.[47]
"Old Dan Tucker" does show evidence of black influence. For example, bizarre imagery in folk versions of the song (e.g., "toothache in his heel") may be a sign of legitimate black input (or of someone poking fun of slaves who had an incomplete knowledge of English).[42] "Old Dan Tucker" most closely resembles African music in its call-and-response refrain.[33]
Daniel Tucker was buried in Elbert County in 1818.[48] The Elbert County Chamber of Commerce today promotes his grave as a tourist attraction due to his possible connection with the character from the song.[49]
Popularity: In December 1842 and January 1843, Dan Emmett portrayed the character Old Dan Tucker in solo and duo performances; the playbills do not indicate whether he included the song in his act.[50] The Virginia Minstrels probably made "Old Dan Tucker" a regular part of their show beginning with their first performance at the Bowery Amphitheatre on February 6, 1843. Their minstrel show also included a comic scene loosely based on the song, "Dan Tucker on Horseback", about a black riding master. The piece starred Richard Pelham in the title role and Frank Brower as a black clown.[51] "Old Dan Tucker" did not appear on a Virginia Minstrels playbill until a March 7 and 8 performance at Boston's Masonic Temple. There, the playbill described it as "OLD DAN TUCKER, a Virginian Refrain, in which is described the ups and downs of Negro life."[52] Beginning March 7, Emmett billed himself as "Old Dan Emmett".[53]
By the end of March, "Old Dan Tucker" was a hit, and it quickly became the Virginia Minstrels' most popular song.[54][5] Only "Miss Lucy Long" exceeded it in popularity for the 1843–7 period,[55] and research by musicologist William J. Mahar suggests that it was behind only "Mary Blane" and "Lucy Long" in its frequency of publication in antebellum songsters.[14] The next year, Dan Tucker returned in the popular "Ole Bull and Old Dan Tucker", which pits him against Ole Bull in a contest of skill.[56] Other companies adopted Tucker for comedy sketches, such as burlesques of La sonnambula by Buckley's Serenaders in 1850 and Sanford's Opera Troupe in 1853.[57]
The song became so identified with Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels that it became part of their foundation myth. Billy Whitlock and George B. Wooldridge both claimed that the troupe members played "Old Dan Tucker" in their first impromptu performance together:
. . . as if by accident, each one picked up his tools and joined in a chorus of "Old Dan Tucker," while Emmett was playing and singing. It went well, and they repeated it without saying a word. Each did his best, and such a rattling of the principal and original instruments in a minstrel band was never heard before.[58]
Emmett repeated this story in the May 19, 1877, New York Clipper, although other details changed.[59] The press began to refer to Emmett as "Ole Dan Tucker",[54] and Emmett eventually adopted the nickname. The Virginia Minstrels sometimes went by "Ole Dan Tucker and Co."[60]
The song's disdain for the customs of the upper classes hit a chord with working class audiences.[34] On January 28, 1843, The New York Sporting Whip reported that the song had been adopted by a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, street gang called the Hallow Guards. As their leader, Stovepipe Bill, led them against a military raid, he sang the verses followed by the gang singing the chorus.[61] Two years later, The Knickerbocker remarked, "At this present moment, a certain ubiquitous person seems to be in the way of the whole people of these United States simultaneously."[62] Nathanson claimed that "Old Dan Tucker" had "been sung, perhaps, oftener than any melody ever written."[63]
In 1871, 28 years after its first published edition, Board and Trade listed editions of "Old Dan Tucker" in print from seven different publishers. The song had by default fallen into the public domain.[64] In later decades, "Old Dan Tucker" became a standard of bluegrass and country music,[65][66] with recordings by such artists as Fiddlin' John Carson, Uncle Dave Macon, Pete Seeger, and Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers.[67] More recently, rock musician Bruce Springsteen made a recording. Children's music collections frequently feature the song.
Notes from Wikipedia: [1] Crawford 211; [2] Mahar 15, 228; [3] Cockrell 156; [4] McCulloch-Williams, quoted in Lomax and Lomax 259. [5] Cockrell 155. [6] Stearns and Stearns 43–4. [7] Mahar 228. [8] Crawford 208, 211. [9] Mahar 230. [10] All song quotations from "Old Dan Tucker" sheet music (1843), Charles H. Keith, Boston. Quoted in Waltz. [11] Mahar 15. [16] Mahar 229–30. [17] Mahar 397 note 40. [18] Mahar 367. [19] McCulloch-Williams, Martha, letter to the New York Sun, quoted in Lomax and Lomax 258. [20] Lomax and Lomax 261. [21] This verse or a variant thereof is quoted in Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Volume III, p. 303, A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book (both quoted in Waltz), and in Lomax and Lomax 261. [22] This chorus or a variant thereof appears in Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Volume III, p. 303, A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book (both quoted in Waltz) and in Lomax and Lomax 261. [23] Casey 41. [24] Gardner 116. [25] McCulloch-Williams, quoted in Lomax and Lomax 259. [26] Randolph 431. [27] Avriett, The Old Plantation, 140–6, quoted in Abrahams, Singing the Master, 236-37. Quoted in Mahar 259. [28] Crawford 257. [29] Hutchinson, Jesse (1845). "Get off the Track!". The Liberty Minstrel. Leavitt & Alden. [30] Quoted in Harland 137. [31] May 74. [32] Welsch 78–9. [33] Quoted in Welsch 78–9 [34] Forcucci 131. [35] Cantwell 124. [36] Crawford 206. [37] Crawford 208. [38] Crawford 210. [39] Finson, John W. (1994). The Voices that Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-century American Popular Song. New York: Oxford University Press. Quoted in Mahar 397 note 41. [40] Cockrell 156–7. [41] [Nathanson, Y. S.] (January 1855). "Negro Minstrelsy—Ancient and Modern". Putnam's Monthly; a Magazine of American Literature, Science, and Art 5, no. 25. P. 74. Quoted in Cockrell 156. [42] Nathan 301. [43] Tracy 19. [44] Quoted in Chase 239. [45] Canebrake Minstrels. [46] Rammel 91. [47] Rammel 90. [48] Quoted in Rammel 90. [49] Quoted in Crawford 206. [50] Wilcox 28. [51] Wilcox 28–9. [53] Wilcox 29. [54] Elbert County Chamber of Commerce. [56] Nathan 114. [57] Nathan 118–9. [58] Quoted in Nathan 119. [59] Nathan 120. [60] Nathan 121. [61] Winans 148. [62] Mahar 22, 370 note 5. [63] Mahar 107. [64] New York Clipper, April 13, 1878. Quoted in Nathan 116. [65] Nathan 117. [66] Lawrence 232 note 26.
References from Wikipedia: The Canebrake Minstrels (2003), Website for Finer than Froghair. Accessed September 17, 2006. Cantwell, Robert (2003). Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Casey, Betty (1985). Dance across Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press. Chase, Gilbert (1987). America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Cockrell, Dale (1997). Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World. Cambridge University Press. Crawford, Richard (2001). America's Musical Life: A History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Elbert County Chamber of Commerce (no date). Old Dan Tucker. Tourist pamphlet. Forcucci, Samuel L. (1984). A Folk Song History of America: America through Its Songs. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Galbreath, C. B. (1901). "Song Writers of Ohio". Ohio Archæological and Historical Publications. Vol. XIII. Gardner, Emelyn E. (1920) "Some Play-party Games in Michigan". The Journal of American Folk-lore Vol. 33. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The American Folk-lore Society. Harland, Marion (1910). Marion Harland's Autobiography: The Story of a Long Life. New York City: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Lawrence, Vera Brodsky (1988). Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong. Volume I: Resonances, 1838–1849. The University of Chicago Press. Lomax, John A., and Lomax, Alan (1934). American Ballads and Folk Songs. New York: The Macmillan Company. Mahar, William J. (1999). Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Malone, Bill C. (2002). Don't Get above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. May, Robert E. (2002). Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Nathan, Hans (1962). Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Rammel, Hal (1990). Nowhere in America: The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Other Comic Utopias. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Randolph, Vance (1992). Roll Me in Your Arms: "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore. Vol I: Folksongs and Music. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press. Silber, Irwin (1960). Songs of the Civil War. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. Stearns, Marshall, and Stearns, Jeanne (1968). Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York City: Da Capo Press. Tracy, Steven C. (1993). Going to Cincinnati: A History of the Blues in the Queen City. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Waltz, Robert (4 August 2005). "Oral Transmission". A Site Inspired by the Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism. Accessed September 17, 2006. Waltz, Robert B., and Engle, David G. (2006). "Old Dan Tucker". The Ballad Index. Welsch, Roger L. (1966). A Treasury of Nebraska Folklore. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Wilcox, Herbert (February-March 1965). "'Old Dan Tucker Was a Grand Old Man': And He Really Lived in Elbert County in the Good Old Days". Georgia Magazine. Winans, Robert B. (1996). "Early Minstrel Show Music, 1843–1852". Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy. Hanover, New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press. Yetman, Norman R., ed. (2000). Voices from Slavery: 100 Authentic Slave Narratives. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc
FINAL NOTES: Certainly "Old Dan Tucker" is one of the most popular American songs. Though not in vogue with current crop the old-time and bluegrass groups in recent years, "Old Dan Tucker" has had some resurgence due to Springsteen’s recording and still remains a classic minstrel song.
Here are the lyrics to "Old Dan Tucker" 1854 Version Daniel D. Emmett:
OLD DAN TUCKER- 1854 Version Daniel D. Emmett
"Composed by Dan D. Emmet, and sung by him with unbounded applause in
Howe's Amphitheatre of the Republic, New York." Page 622 in "Marsh's
Selection, or Singing For the Million, Containing the Choicest and
Best Collection of Admired Patriotic, Comic, Irish, Negro, Temperance,
and Sentimental Songs Ever Embodied in One Work." Three volumes in
one, New York, Richard Marsh, 374 Pearl Street, 1854.
Reproduced in Newman I. White, 1928, American Negro Folk Songs,
pp. 446-447 (1965 reprint). Some verses borrowed from Negro song,
some Negro folk song verses were borrowed from Emmett. A complete
version of a minstrel song. Note: Spelling preserved.
I come to town de udder night,
I hear de noise den saw de sight,
De watchmen dey were runnin' roun',
Cryin' Old Dan Tucker's come to town,
Git out ob de way! [banjo]
Git out ob de way! [banjo]
Git out ob de way old Dan Tucker,
Your to late to come to your supper.
Tucker is a nice old man,
He used to ride our darby ram,
He sent him whizzin' down de hill,
If he hadn't got up- he'd laid dar still.
Git out ob de way, etc.
Sheep an' de hog walkin' in de pastur
Sheep sez "hog can't ye go a little faster?
Hush! hush honey! hear de wolf howlin'!
Ah, ah, de Lawd- ole bull dog growlin',
Git out ob de way, etc.
Jaybird in de martin's nest,
To sabe he soul he got no rest,
Ole Tucker run in de fox's den
Ou come de young ones- nine or ten.
Git, etc.
Tucker on de woodpile- can't count 'lebben
Put in a fedder bed- him gwine to hebben,
His nose so flat, his face so full,
De top ob his head like a bag ob wool,
Git etc.
Tucker went round hicory steeple,
Dar he met some colored people,
Some was black, an' some was blacker,
Some was de color ob brown tobacur.
Git etc.
High-hold on de holler tree,
He poke his bill in for to see,
De lizzard cotch 'im by de snout,
He call old Tucker to pull 'im out.
Git etc.
Tucker, he had cash a-plenty,
Dressed to death- his old trunck empty,
To kiss de gals he thot was useless,
'Cept he kissed wid a sway-back-looseness.
Git etc.
Here's my razor in good order,
Magnum Bonum- jis hab bought 'er,
Sheep shell de oats, old Tucker shell de corn
I'll shabe you all when de water gits warm.
Git etc.
I went to meetin' de udder day,
To hear old Tucker preach an' pray,
Dey all got drunk, but me alone,
I make ole Tucker- walk jaw-bone,
Git out ob de way, [banjo]
Git out ob de way, [banjo]
Git out ob de way you harden'd sinner,
Your too late to come to your dinner.
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