Old Dan Tucker: A Song History
"Old Dan Tucker" came out of early blackface minstrelsy, and the earliest printing the Traditional Ballad Index records is sheet music published by Charles H. Keith in 1843, credited to "Dan Tucker Jr."[1][2] The Ballad Index says it is generally attributed to Dan Emmett and counts it as his first important song, but the authorship is not settled: a University of Toronto database of minstrel songs calls Emmett's claim unverified and notes Library of Congress copies credited to Philip Ernst and James M. Deems, and the Traditional Tune Archive adds that the words have also been credited to Henry Russell.[1][2][3] Emmett, born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1815, was one of the four performers who formed the Virginia Minstrels in New York City in 1843, one of the earliest minstrel troupes.[4] According to the Tune Archive, he taught the song to his fellow Virginia Minstrels that year and it quickly became a hit; the Archive also repeats the story that he first sang it at age fifteen at a Fourth of July celebration in his hometown, and cites the folklorist Samuel Bayard's view that the melody is older than its minstrel words.[3]
Banjo, wood and various materials, mid-19th century. A banjo of the song's era, shown for the instrument; it has no connection to the song.
The song spread fast: the Toronto database lists a performance by the American Southern Minstrels at Astley's Amphitheatre in London on 21 October 1844, and with "Lucy Long" and "Mary Blane," it ranked among the most often published minstrel songs of its day.[2] Its tune soon carried other words, among them songs titled "Clear the Track" and "Henry Clay," and some minstrel-era printings turned its verses into political satire.[1][3] It also settled into the dance repertoire: an 1870 dance card from Lima, Ohio, lists it for a quadrille, an 1899 fiddle contest in Gallatin, Tennessee, gave a prize for the best rendition, and in some square dances the active man is called the "Tucker."[3]
The earliest recording the Ballad Index lists is Harry C. Browne's for Columbia in 1916, and 1920s recordings followed from Fiddlin' John Carson, who recorded it in 1924, Uncle Dave Macon, whose version Vocalion issued in 1925, and Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers in 1928.[1] The Golden Gate Quartet recorded it for the Library of Congress in 1940.[3] Later recordings by Pete Seeger on Folkways in 1957 and Bruce Springsteen in 2006 helped keep it in circulation, and it is now often counted as a folk song rather than a minstrel number.[2] Bing Futch arranges it in DAD tuning in Mountain Dulcimer In The Band (Book 2), a J.O.B. Entertainment collection of sixteen dulcimer favorites that comes with MP3 recordings of each song.[5]
Sources
- Traditional Ballad Index: "Old Dan Tucker".
- University of Toronto, JUBA Project (Early Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain 1842–1852): "Old Dan Tucker".
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Old Dan Tucker".
- Encyclopædia Britannica: "Dan Emmett".
- Bing Futch: "Mountain Dulcimer In The Band (Book 2)".
- Image: Banjo, wood and various materials, mid-19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.