|
4/4 Jigs
DM: This section of Ryan's was devoted to syncopated banjo and fiddle tunes in
cut time used to accompany the hard and soft shoe dancers of blackface
minstrelsy and the later variety stage. They were sometimes referred to as
straight jigs to distinguish them from the Irish variety.
|
| Name |
Ryan |
Coles |
Notes |
|
|
|
|
| Bird on the Wing |
117 |
83 |
DM: First part resembles the fifth part of
Kitty O'Neil's Champion (Ryan p112). |
| Black Sheep |
112 |
80 |
DM: Attributed by Ryan's to fiddler Dick Myers (born
Baltimore 1809, died Philadelphia 1874), who performed in the
1840s with the Virginia Serenaders. His blackface stage name
was "Ole Bull", after the famous touring Norwegian
violin virtuoso. |
| Bob Chadduck's |
113 |
80 |
DM: AKA King-Pin (Ryan p117) |
| Dar's Sugar in De Gourd |
118 |
84 |
DM: Ryan's attributes this to James Buckley of the
Boston-based minstrel family. Born in 1803 in Manchester,
England, he authored a banjo tutor in 1860 and died in
Quincy, Massachusetts in 1872. See notes on
Buckley's (Ryan p136). |
| H -' on the Wabash |
114 |
81 |
DM: In 1883 you couldn't print "Hell"
(though "Nigger" was allowable). This tune is
attributed to Dan Emmett, the minstrel fiddler and banjo
player who also took credit for the song Dixie. |
| Harry Bloodgood's Famous |
118 |
84 |
DM: Bloodgood, who led his own minstrel troupe, was
the composer of Poor Old Rufe (or Rube), a
popular blacface song printed in Minstrel Songs Old and New
(Boston, 1883). |
| Jersey Lightning |
113 |
80 |
DM: In Prohibition days, and probably much earlier,
Garden State "moonshine" was known as "Jersey
Lightning." Frank Quinn recorded an unrelated song by
this name. |
| King-Pin |
117 |
83 |
DM: AKA Bob Chadduck's (Ryan p113) |
| Kitty O'Neil's Champion |
112 |
80 |
DM: This tune is a "sand jig," i.e., a
shuffle dance performed on a sand-strewn stage or, in more
recent times, a sandbox placed on the stage. The name honors
the most famous female "jig" dancer on the American
variety stage in the 1870s and '80s. A version of the first
two parts was printed as Kitty O'Neil c. 1867 in Howe's
1000 from the playing of Boston fiddler Jimmy "the Boss
Jig Player" Norton. The fifth of seven parts resembles
the first part of Bird on the Wing (Ryan p117), while
the second part is much like that of Phil Isaac's
(Ryan p112). Revived (as Kitty O'Shea) by Tommy
Peoples in the 1970s and since recorded by Kevin Burke, among
others. |
| Kitty Sharpe's Champion |
117 |
83 |
DM: Named for a variety stage dancer of who performed
in the Bowery beer hall theaters of New York in the 1880s.
This tune would seem to have been composed by the same hand
that authored Kitty O'Neill's Champion. O'Neill printed
the first two parts as Everybody's Fancy. Kerr's II
reprinted it from Ryan's. |
| Nigger in De Woodpile |
114 |
82 |
DM: Another tune attributed to Dan Emmett in Hans
Nathan's biography of the minstrel.
NG: In Cole's this is simply called The Wood Pile. |
| Oakland Garden |
115 |
82 |
DM: Oakland Garden was a Boston theater. Ryan's
attributes this tune to Edwin Christie, a singer and banjo
player born in Philadelphia in 1815 and the founder of the
original Christie's Minstrels. Christie popularized (and took
credit for) some of Stephen Foster's songs. He committed
suicide in New York in 1862. |
| Phil Isaac's |
112 |
80 |
DM: Isaac was a fiddler born in London in 1831. In
1857 he became a founding member of Bryant's Minstrels. He
died in San Francisco in 1865. The second part of this tune
is quite similar to the second part of Kitty O'Neil's
Champion. |
| Root, Hog, or Die |
118 |
84 |
DM: A minstrel song/dance tune attributed to Dan
Emmett. |
| Tidal Wave |
112 |
80 |
DM: Attributed by Ryan's to Eddie Fox, a minstrel
fiddler of the 1870s and '80s who also composed the songs
Carry the News to Mary and Goodbye Liza Jane. |
| Tom Briggs |
113 |
80 |
DM: Briggs was a prominent minstrel-era banjo player
who in 1855 published a banjo tutor. He is also credited with
inventing the banjo "thimble" (used for rapid
tremolo picking) in 1848. |
