Today in Music (1846): “Jimmy Crack Corn” published

Jimmy Crack Corn traditional

Writer(s): traditional/credited to Daniel Decatur Emmett (see lyrics here) First Published: January 20, 1846 First Charted: July 31, 1948 Peak: 24 BB (Burl Ives) (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 3.71 video, 0.73 streaming (multiple versions)

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “Jimmy Crack Corn,” also known as “The Blue Tail Fly,” was first published by F.D. Benteen of Baltimore on January 20, 1846. JF It became popular as a blackface minstrel song performed by Daniel Decatur Emmett’s Virginia Minstrels. WK Emmett is generally credited with the song, although he may have simply arranged and published an African-American song that already existed. WK The opening notes are similar to “Miss Lucy Long,” published in 1842. JF The song grew out of the experience of slaves in the American South and their use of music and storytelling to connect and express emotions. AN It “reflects the hostility of slave towards master in Southern plantation society.” BA It “is a lively and spirited song that has endured over time as a testament to the creativity and resilience of African American culture.” AN “Cracking corn” was a phrase that referred to sitting around and gossiping. AN The song starts out with the singer, a house slave, being expected to protect his master and his horse from a blue-tailed fly. When he fails, the master is thrown from the horse and killed. The singer is charged with the death but eventually gains his freedom when the death is blamed on the blue-tail fly. WK The song isn’t without controversy as it is perceived as offering a simplistic view of slavery and that slaves were happy and carefree despite the oppression against them. AN The song has been viewed both as the slave lamenting over his master’s death and celebrating it. WK Abraham Lincoln is said to have requested the song be played at Gettysburg, where he delivered his famous address in November 1863. WS It was reportedly a favorite of his that he may have even played on harmonica. TR The song experienced a revival in the 1940s as a folk song and Burl Ives charted with it in 1948. It became a popular children’s song and campfire favorite. Big Bill Broonzy, Bob Dylan, Lead Belly, Tom Lehrer, and Pete Seeger are among those to record and perform the song. WK In 1959, Johnny & the Hurricanes recorded a instrumental version of the song called “Beatnik Fly” and reached #15 in the US and #8 in the UK. Resources: AN AllNurseryRhymes.com BA BalladOfAmerica.com JF James J. Fuld (2000). The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk. Dover Publications: Mineola, NY. Dover Publications: Mineola, NY. Page 312. TR Theodore Raph (1986). The American Song Treasury: 100 Favorites. Dover Publications, Inc.: Mineola, NY. Page 109. WS William Studwell (1997). The Americana Song Reader. The Haworth Press, Inc.: Binghampton, NY. Page 53. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/18/2025.

 

On This Day in Music (1859): “Dixie” was performed for the first time

Dixie Daniel Decatur Emmett (words and music)

Writer(s): Daniel Decatur Emmett (see lyrics here) First Performed: April 4, 1859 Published: June 21, 1860 First Charted: -- Peak: -- (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming

Awards (Emmett): Click on award for more details. Awards (Tanner):

About the Song: “If the Confederacy and its memory had an accompanying anthem, it was ‘Dixie.’” NPR Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tony Horowitz writes in his book Confederates in the Attic that the song “is sentimental and elegiac, recalling this land of cotton fields and buckwheat cakes and a kind of slow-moving world that can seem appealing through rose-colored glasses…[It] speaks to a bygone, slow-paced world that some white Southerners felt had been snuffed out by a brutish, industrial North.” NPR The word “dixie” can refer to the land south of the Mason-Dixon line, but is thought to actually be a reference to a worthless ten dollar bill issued in New Orleans. They were called “dixies” because they had “dix,” the French word for “ten,” printed on them. CP Surprisingly, the song was born in the North. Daniel Decatur Emmett, a Northerner born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1815, was a founder of the Virginia Minstrels in 1843 SS and wrote the songs “Old Dan Tucker” and “Polly Wolly Doodle.” In 1858, he was hired as a songwriter for the Bryant’s Minstrels. “Dixie” had “strong echoes both of an old German hymn and an English music hall song he used to sing.” SS He wrote it on a Sunday night and, according to a playbill from the Mechanics’ Hall in New York City, it was performed at a minstrel show the next night on April 4, 1859. The song was published as “I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land” on June 21, 1860, selling the publishing rights for $100. SS Minstrel shows featured white men in blackface performing racial parodies. President Abraham Lincoln heard the song performed in 1860 in Chicago by the Rumsey and Newcomb Minstrels and reportedly clapped and shouted, “Let’s have it again! Let’s have it again!” BA At the end of the Civil War, Lincoln asked for a military band to play “Dixie” as a message that “That tune is now Federal property and it is good to show the rebels that, with us in power, they will be free to hear it again.” BA However, Southern troops quickly adopted the song, marching into battle singing it. It was played with Confederate President Jefferson Davis took the oath of office in 1861. SA Emmett, who was a Union supporter, reportedly said, “If I had known to what use they were going to put my song, I’ll be damned if I’d have written it.” SA While it face value “Dixie” is “simply a lovely, infectious regional anthem” SS it has sadly been tied to the 20th century revival of white supremacy. The song soundtracked Birth of a Nation the movie that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1940s, it was embraced by segregationists. In the 1950s, white women sung it in protest of the integration of schools. Much like the Confederate flag, the song has become an anathema to African-Americans. NPR Civil War historian Ed Ayers asks, “Why do those four years, out of the 400 years that people have lived on this landscape…why do they get to define us forever? Why can’t we claim new voices and new identities that embrace all Southern people?” NPR He acknowledges that it is impossible to hear “’Dixie’ as anything other than a song that’s accrued all this meaning over many generations.” NPR The song has not charted but has been performed by Issler’s Orchestra (1895), Frank Stanley & Byron Harlan (1909), Gib Tanner & His Skillet Lickers (1927), and Tennessee Ernie Ford. It has been performed by numerous Southern university marching bands. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Daniel Decatur Emmett AMP AmericanMusicPreservation.com BA BalladOfAmerica.org CP Contemplator.com NPR NPR.org (9/20/2018). “The Anthemic Allure of ‘Dixie,’ An Enduring Confederate Monument” by Bilal Qureshi SA SongOfAmerica.net “Dixie SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 740-1. WK Wikipedia.org First posted 8/29/2023.