List of blackface minstrel songs
This is a list of songs that either originated in blackface minstrelsy or are otherwise closely associated with that tradition. Songwriters and publication dates are given where known.
A
B
- "Babylon Is Fallen", Henry Clay Work (1863)
- "Back Side of Albany"[3]
- "The Band of Niggers! From 'Ole Virginny State'" (1844)[4]
- "The Bee-Gum", G. Willig (1833)[5]
- "Billy Patterson", Dan Emmett (1860)[6]
- "The Black Brigade", Dan Emmett (1863)[7]
- "Blue Tail Fly" (a.k.a. "Jimmy Crack Corn") c. 1846[8]
- "The Boatman's Dance", credited to Dan Emmett (1843)[9] (Emmett, Boston, 1840s or 1842) (Nathan 131-2, 186, 191, 193, 320-3)
- "Bonja Song" (c. 1820)[10]
- "Bowery Gals" (a.k.a. "As I Was Lumbering")[2]
- "Bress Dat Lubly Yaller Gal"[2]
- "Briggs' Breakdown", Z. Bacchus[11]
C
D
- "Dandy Broadway Swell", Elias Howe (1849)[21]
- "Dandy Jim from Caroline" (and variants), Dan Emmett (c. 1844)[22]
- "Dar He Goes! Dats Him!", Dan Emmett (1844)[23]
- "Dere Be Any Malted Licker Here?" [24]
- "Darkey Money Musk" (a.k.a. "Money Must", "Holyrood or Moneymusk", "Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk's Reel"), Daniel Dow (1780)
- "Darkies' Pastime"[25]
- "Dearest May"[16]
- "Dick Myers' Jig", published by Dan Emmett[26]
- "Dinah's Wedding Day"[2]
- "Division Street Jig", Z. Bacchus[27]
- "Dixie" (a.k.a. "Dixie's Land", "I Wish I Was in Dixie"), usually attributed to Dan Emmett, 1859[28]
- "Do Fare You Well Ladies" (1840s)[29]
- "Do I Do I Don't Do Nothing" (1825)[30]
- "Dr. Hekok Jig", Z. Bacchus, published by Dan Emmett[9](Nathan 200, 203, 208, 486-7)
E
F
- "Far [Fare] You Well Ladies"[2]
- "Farewell My Lilly Dear", Stephen Foster (1851)[32]
- "The Fine Old Color'd Gentleman", Dan Emmett (1843)[9]
- "De Floating Scow Quickstep" (a.k.a. "Oh Carry Me Back to Old Virginny"*), E. Ferrett (1847)
- "Forty Hosses in de Stable", J. Kierman (1840s)[33]
- "The Free Nigger", sung by R. W. Pelham (1841)[34]
G
H
I
J
K
L
- "Land of Canaan", played by J. Simmons (before 1860)
- "A Life by the Galley Fire"[16]
- "De Long Island Nigger", Emma Snow (?) (c. 1848)[4]
- "Long Time Ago", John Cole (1833)[62]
- "Loozyanna Low Grounds", Dan Emmett (1859)[63]
- "Lucy Neal"/"Lucy Neale" J. P. Carter (1844)[42]
- "Lynchburg Town"[16]
M
N
O
- "(O Lud Gals,) Gib Me [Us] Chaw Terbakur", words by Dan Emmett (1843)[73]
- "Oh, Come along John" a.k.a. "Walk along John" (1843)[74]
- "Oh, Ladies All!", Dan Emmett (published 1858, probably written in the 1840s)[75]
- "Oh Lemuel", Stephen Foster (1850)
- "Oh! Susanna", Stephen Foster (1847)[76][2]
- "Old Bob Ridley", Charles White (1855)[77]
- "Old Dan Tucker", words by Dan Emmett (1843)
- "Old Folks at Home", Stephen Foster (1851)[32]
- "Old Joe", F. M. Brower (1844)[78]
- "Old Joe Golden"[79]
- "Old Johnny Boker"[3]
- "Old King Crow"[2]
- "Old K. Y. Ky.", Dan Emmett (1860)[80]
- "Old Tar River"/Ole Tare River" (1840)[81]
- "Old Uncle Ned", Stephen Foster (1848)[32]
- "Ole Bull and Old Dan Tucker" (1844)[82]
- "The Ole Grey Goose" (1844)[83]
- "De Ole Jawbone" (and variants), perhaps Joel Sweeney (1840)[42]
- "Ole Pee Dee", J. P. Carter (1844)[84]
- "Ole Virginny Break Down" (1841)[85]
- "Owl Creek Quickstep", Dan Emmett[86]
P
Q
- "Quaker's Jig", R. Myers[35]
R
S
T
U
- "Uncle Gabriel" (1848)[102]
V
W
Y
Z
Notes
- ^ Nathan 209.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Mahar 368.
- ^ a b Winans 5. Winans gives no more information than the title.
- ^ a b Nathan 84.
- ^ Nathan 161.
- ^ Nathan 254-5.
- ^ Nathan 255.
- ^ Lott 200.
- ^ a b c d e Winans 4.
- ^ Nathan 159-60.
- ^ Nathan 483-4
- ^ From Representative Poetry Online; the site does not specifically single this out as a minstrel tune, but it is by Foster, and the dialect is immediately apparent.
- ^ a b c Nathan 207.
- ^ Cockrell 148. Cockrell gives no composer or date of publication.
- ^ Cockrell 47-9.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mahar 367.
- ^ Nathan 194.
- ^ Lott 133: performed 1833 by T. D. Rice in Oh, Hush! or The Virginny Cupids.
- ^ Cockrell, p. xi.
- ^ a b c Nathan 215.
- ^ Nathan 59.
- ^ Nathan 324-7.
- ^ Nathan 183-4.
- ^ Nathan 187
- ^ Nathan 190.
- ^ a b Nathan 200-1.
- ^ Nathan 485.
- ^ The writer of "Dixie" is contested. Many sources, including Nathan, credit Dan Emmett as the song's writer. Sacks and Sacks, on the other hand, name members of the Snowden Family Band as the writers. Abel 47-8 lays out the claim to the song made by William Shakespeare Hays.
- ^ Nathan 86.
- ^ Nathan 159.
- ^ Nathan 345-6.
- ^ a b c d e Lott 187.
- ^ Nathan 75.
- ^ a b Nathan 57.
- ^ a b c d Nathan 195.
- ^ Nathan 202-4.
- ^ Nathan 79.
- ^ Nathan 191-2.
- ^ Nathan 244-5
- ^ Nathan 173.
- ^ Nathan 432-4.
- ^ a b c d e Winans 5.
- ^ Nathan 194-5
- ^ Nathan 395-400.
- ^ Nathan 334.
- ^ a b Nathan 243.
- ^ Abel 41.
- ^ Nathan 316.
- ^ Nathan 208.
- ^ a b Lott 95: these were essentially Irish nationalist songs in blackface.
- ^ Nathan 277.
- ^ Nathan 55-6.
- ^ a b Cockrell 10.
- ^ Cockrell 5.
- ^ Nathan 199.
- ^ Nathan 439-42.
- ^ Nathan 244.
- ^ Nathan 335-9
- ^ Nathan 443-6.
- ^ Nathan 73.
- ^ Nathan 72.
- ^ Nathan 161-2.
- ^ Nathan 379-80
- ^ Nathan 204-5.
- ^ Nathan 64-6.
- ^ Nathan 130-1.
- ^ Nathan 340.
- ^ Nathan 348.
- ^ Nathan 175-6.
- ^ Nathan 447-9.
- ^ Nathan 88.
- ^ Nathan 488.
- ^ Nathan 475-8.
- ^ Nathan 450-3.
- ^ Nathan 332-3.
- ^ Lott 203-206.
- ^ Nathan 81.
- ^ Nathan 457-60.
- ^ Nathan 467-8.
- ^ Nathan 385-9.
- ^ Nathan 471-4.
- ^ Mahar 22.
- ^ Nathan 461-3.
- ^ Nathan 469-70.
- ^ Nathan 90.
- ^ a b Sacks and Sacks 170.
- ^ a b Nathan 489.
- ^ Nathan 341-2.
- ^ Nathan 154
- ^ Nathan 186.
- ^ Lott 194.
- ^ Nathan 370-3.
- ^ Nathan 490.
- ^ Nathan 347.
- ^ Nathan 366-9.
- ^ a b Cockrell 47.
- ^ Nathan 89.
- ^ Nathan 490-1.
- ^ Nathan 65.
- ^ Nathan 174.
- ^ Nathan 403-9.
- ^ Nathan 87.
- ^ Nathan 491.
- ^ Mahar 196.
- ^ Nathan 381-4.
- ^ Nathan 191.
- ^ Nathan 479-82.
- ^ Nathan 257.
- ^ page on U.C. Berkeley site, page on www.stephen-foster-songs.de, accessed 11 Sept 2005. The tune is better known today as "Turkey in the Straw", although those are later lyrics.
References
- Abel, E. Lawrence (2000). Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy, 1861-1865. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books.
- Cockrell, Dale (1997). Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World. Cambridge University Press.
- Lott, Eric (1993). Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509641-X.
- Mahar, William J. (1999). Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
- Nathan, Hans (1962). Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
- Sacks, Howard L. and Sacks, Judith Rose (1993). Way up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
- Winans, Robert B. (1985). Liner notes to The Early Minstrel Show. New York: Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc.
See also