Golden Slippers: A Song History

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"Golden Slippers" began as "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers," a song by James A. Bland published in Boston by John F. Perry & Co. in 1879.[1] Bland, born in 1854 into a free and fairly prosperous African American family, grew up partly in Philadelphia, studied at Howard University and became one of the best-known performers and songwriters of the minstrel stage.[2] The song was a parody of an African American spiritual, also called "Golden Slippers," that the Fisk Jubilee Singers had brought to concert audiences in the 1870s.[2] Bland's version belonged to the minstrel tradition, with comic lyrics written in an exaggerated imitation of Black speech, and its music was a brisk dance number.[2] It was a hit at once, and in time it became far better known than the spiritual it mocked.[3][4] Bland wrote hundreds of songs but died poor in 1911.[5]

A pair of 1830s-40s silk slippers embroidered in gold

Slippers, silk, 1835–45. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A pair of embroidered slippers of the period; they have no connection to the song.

In Philadelphia the song became the unofficial anthem of the Mummers' New Year's Day parade.[2][4] According to tradition, a minstrel performer named Charles Dumont brought it to the Mummers around 1905, though it may have joined their repertoire earlier, and many Mummers in the twenty-first century have kept up the custom of golden shoes.[2] The melody also left the stage and entered folk fiddling. In the early twentieth century Arizona fiddler Kenner C. Kartchner played it in harmony with a second fiddler for dances, and it was played as a reel, two-step or polka.[5] Early recordings of the tune included the Dykes Magic City Trio on Brunswick in 1927, an unissued 1928 Gennett side by the Tweedy Brothers, and Lonnie Austin on Brunswick in 1929.[5] Vernon Dalhart and Carson Robison recorded a vocal version for Columbia in New York on June 11, 1928.[6] Today the tune is part of the mountain dulcimer jam repertoire and appears in Stephen Seifert's Join the Jam.[7]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Golden Slippers (I)".
  2. The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia: "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers".
  3. WRTI: "The Story Behind the Mummers' Theme Song, 'Oh, Dem Golden Slippers'".
  4. Ballad of America: "Golden Slippers: About the Song".
  5. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Golden Slippers".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W146424. Oh dem golden slippers / Vernon Dalhart ; Carson Robison".
  7. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam DAD Tuning".