The Virginia Minstrels or Virginia Serenaders was a group of 19th-century American entertainers who helped invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show. Led by Dan Emmett, the original lineup consisted of Emmett, Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Frank Brower.
Land of Dreams the eighth studio album by Randy Newman, Released in 1988, the album features vignettes of his childhood in New Orleans.
Daniel Decatur Emmett was an American composer, entertainer, and founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition, the Virginia Minstrels. He is most remembered as the composer of the song "Dixie".
"Dixie", also known as "Dixie's Land", "I Wish I Was in Dixie", and other titles, is a song about the Southern United States first made in 1859. It is one of the most distinctively Southern musical products of the 19th century. It was not a folk song at its creation, but it has since entered the American folk vernacular. The song likely rooted the word "Dixie" in the American vocabulary as a nickname for the Southern U.S.
"Old Dan Tucker," also known as "Ole Dan Tucker," "Dan Tucker," and other variants, is an American popular song. Its origins remain obscure; the tune may have come from oral tradition, and the words may have been written by songwriter and performer Dan Emmett. The blackface troupe the Virginia Minstrels popularized "Old Dan Tucker" in 1843, and it quickly became a minstrel hit, behind only "Miss Lucy Long" and "Mary Blane" in popularity during the antebellum period. "Old Dan Tucker" entered the folk vernacular around the same time. Today it is a bluegrass and country music standard. It is no. 390 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
Bryant's Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe that performed in the mid-19th century, primarily in New York City. The troupe was led by the O'Neill brothers from upstate New York, who took the stage name Bryant.
"I'm Going Home to Dixie" is an American walkaround, a type of dance song. It was written by Dan Emmett in 1861 as a sequel to the immensely popular walkaround "Dixie". The sheet music was first published that same year by Firth, Pond & Company in an arrangement by C. S. Grafully. Despite the publisher's claim that "I'm Going Home to Dixie" had been "Sung with tumultuous applause by the popular Bryant's Minstrels", the song lacked the charm of its predecessor, and it quickly faded into obscurity. The song's lyrics follow the minstrel show scenario of the freed slave longing to return to his master in the South; it was the last time Emmett would use the term "Dixie" in a song. Its tune simply repeated Emmett's earlier walkaround "I Ain't Got Time to Tarry" from 1858.
"Gumbo Chaff", also spelled "Gombo Chaff", is an American song, first performed in the early 1830s. It was part of the repertoire of early blackface performers, including Thomas D. Rice and George Washington Dixon.
"De Wild Goose-Nation" is an American song composed by blackface minstrel performer Dan Emmett.
"I Ain't Got Time to Tarry", also known as "The Land of Freedom", is an American song written by blackface minstrel composer Dan Emmett. It premiered in a minstrel show performance by Bryant's Minstrels in late November 1858. The song was published in New York City in 1859.
"I'm Gwine ober de Mountain", also spelled "I'm Going ober de Mountain", is an American song written by the blackface minstrel composer Dan Emmett. The song may be a precursor to "Dixie", as evidenced by its line "Away down south in de Kentuck brake"; in comparison, "Dixie" includes the line, "Away down south in Dixie". The first phrase of "I'm Gwine ober de Mountain" was probably modeled after "The Spinning Wheel", an older English song.
The Snowden Family Band was a 19th-century African American musical group. The children of the Snowden family of Clinton, Knox County, Ohio, comprised the ensemble. The band's career stretched from before the American Civil War into living memory; no other African American band of their type lasted as long.
William Shakespeare Hays was an American poet and lyricist. He wrote some 350 songs over his career and sold as many as 20 million copies of his works. These pieces varied in tone from low comedy to sentimental and pious; his material was sometimes confused with that of Stephen Foster as a result. In his later years, Hays put forth one of the more plausible claims to authorship of the song "Dixie". In the end, however, no evidence could be produced to back up his pretensions.
William M. Whitlock was an American blackface performer. He began his career in entertainment doing blackface banjo routines in circuses and dime shows, and by 1843 he was well known in New York City. He is best known for his role in forming the original minstrel show troupe, the Virginia Minstrels.
Francis Marion Brower was an American blackface performer active in the mid-19th century. Brower began performing blackface song-and-dance acts in circuses and variety shows when he was 13. He eventually introduced the bones to his act, helping to popularize it as a blackface instrument. Brower teamed with various other performers, forming his longest association with banjoist Dan Emmett beginning in 1841. Brower earned a reputation as a gifted dancer. In 1842, Brower and Emmett moved to New York City. They were out of work by January 1843, when they teamed up with Billy Whitlock and Richard Pelham to form the Virginia Minstrels. The group was the first to perform a full minstrel show as a complete evening's entertainment. Brower pioneered the role of the endman.
Dixie is a 1943 American biographical film of songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett directed by A. Edward Sutherland and starring Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. Filming in Technicolor, Dixie was only a moderate success and received mixed reviews. Contrary to rumor, it has not been withdrawn from circulation due to racial issues but is simply one of hundreds of vintage Paramount Pictures from the 1930s and 1940s now owned by Universal and not actively marketed; it was broadcast several times in the late 1980s on the American Movie Classics channel. The film produced one of Crosby's most popular songs, "Sunday, Monday, or Always".
Africa is an unincorporated community located in Orange Township of southern Delaware County, Ohio, United States, by Alum Creek.
During the American Civil War, music played a prominent role on each side of the conflict, Union and Confederate. On the battlefield, different instruments including bugles, drums, and fifes were played to issue marching orders or sometimes simply to boost the morale of one's fellow soldiers. Singing was also employed not only as a recreational activity but as a release from the inevitable tensions that come with fighting in a war. In camp, music was a diversion away from the bloodshed, helping the soldiers deal with homesickness and boredom. Soldiers of both sides often engaged in recreation with musical instruments, and when the opposing armies were near each other, sometimes the bands from both sides of the conflict played against each other on the night before a battle.
Dixie, also known as Dixieland or Dixie's Land, is a nickname for all or part of the Southern United States. While there is no official definition of this region, or the extent of the area it covers, most definitions include the U.S. states below the Mason–Dixon line that seceded and comprised the Confederate States of America, almost always including the Deep South. The term became popularized throughout the United States by songs that nostalgically referred to the American South.
