Chicken Wing Trot: A Song History
John Keane, a music educator from Shreveport, Louisiana, who performs alongside Karen Keane, wrote "Chicken Wing Trot" for the mountain dulcimer.[1][2] The tune is one of fifteen, every one credited to Keane as composer, in 15 Originals, his 43-page book published by Fingers Of Steel, and the listing sets it in DAD tuning.[1] None of the sources consulted here says what prompted the title or points to a recording of the piece.[1][2]
Allen & Ginter, Dark Brahma Cockerel, from the Prize and Game Chickens series (N20) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, commercial color lithograph, 1891. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.
As general background only, the word "trot" also appears in the names of social dances such as the turkey trot and the fox-trot.[3][4] Britannica groups the turkey trot with other "exotic numbers" that took their influence from jazz, then a new music.[3] It gives about 1914 as the date the fox-trot appeared and passes on, as an unconfirmed claim, that the dance was named for the comedian Harry Fox, who used a trotting step in his 1913 Ziegfeld Follies act.[4] Nothing in the sources consulted here connects Keane's tune with either dance, and this background is not an explanation of his title.[1][3][4]
Sources
- Fingers Of Steel: "John Keane, 15 Originals".
- DulcimerDownloads: "John Keane".
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Turkey trot".
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Fox-trot".
- Image: Allen & Ginter, Dark Brahma Cockerel, from the Prize and Game Chickens series (N20) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, commercial color lithograph, 1891. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.