Chicken Reel: A Song History

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Joseph M. Daly's piano piece "Chicken Reel" came out in Boston in 1910 from Daly Music Publisher, billed as a two-step and buck dance, with "Performer's Buck" as an alternate title[1][2]. Daly set it in C, and according to the Traditional Tune Archive fiddlers later shifted it up to D; the same entry hears the long slide and the quick notes after it as mimicking a chicken's abrupt, twitchy motion[2][3]. The Archive also reports Fuld's suggestion (1966, 1971) that Daly may have borrowed a folk melody already in circulation or pieced the tune together from folk material[3]. A version with words by Joseph Mittenthal was issued by the same Boston firm in 1911[4], and the baritone Arthur Collins recorded that vocal version with orchestra for Columbia in New York on July 11, 1911[5].

Hokusai color woodblock print of a red-combed rooster and a hen among blue spiderwort flowers

Katsushika Hokusai, Rooster, Hen and Chicken with Spiderwort, color woodblock print, ca. 1832. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown in fun for its chickens; it has no connection to the tune.

The Tune Archive lists 78s by the Tweedy Brothers of West Virginia (Gennett, 1924), A. J. Boulay (recorded in Montreal in 1928) and Doc Roberts (1930), and notes that Vance Randolph recorded Ozark fiddlers playing it for the Library of Congress in the early 1940s[3]. It also cites Bronner's 1987 finding that the reel was a dance favorite in New York State, partly because dancers knew it at once and it slotted readily into longer dance sets[3]. Dulcimer players have a claim on it too: Chet Parker included it in a medley on his 1966 Folkways album The Hammer Dulcimer[6].

"Chicken Reel" is listed among the songs in the Looney Tunes cartoon Chicken Jitters (1939)[7].

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Sources

  1. University of Wisconsin-Madison Mills Music Library, Popular Music Collection: "Chicken reel" (Daly, 1910).
  2. IMSLP Petrucci Music Library: "Chicken Reel (Daly, Joseph M.)".
  3. Traditional Tune Archive: "Chicken Reel (1)".
  4. University of Mississippi Libraries, eGrove (Sheldon Harris Collection): "Chicken Reel / music by M. Daly; words by Jos Mittenthal".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings (UC Santa Barbara): "Columbia matrix 19454. Chicken reel / Arthur Collins".
  6. Smithsonian Folkways: "The Hammer Dulcimer Played by Chet Parker".
  7. Cartoon Research: "1938-39 Looney Tunes: New Patterns Emerge".