History of the Song, "Dixie"

Daniel Emmett, the composer of " Dixie ," was born in Ohio in 1815, but his spirit was usually somewhere else.

The offspring of Irish parents, Emmett had little formal schooling but always liked music. After a stint in a newspaper office, he enlisted in the peacetime Army as a musician. There he composed "Old Dan Tucker," a song that found its way into many songbooks.

After five years in the Army, most of it at posts along the Mississippi , Emmett was ready for a change. He left th e s ervice in 1835, hoping to earn a livelihood from music.

A fledgling art form in America at the time was the "minstrel show," which combined the working-class humor of the English music hall with pseudo-Negro music. Performing in blackface, minstrel shows traveled from one town to another as America 's canals and railroads made road shows possible. Minstrel shows were almost the only outlet for pre-Civil War songwriters, who included among their number the talented Stephen Foster.

In the winter of 1842-43, Emmett organized a troupe that he called the "Virginia Minstrels." Dressed in white trousers, striped shirts and swallowtail coats, they made a uniquely American sound, with violins, banjos, tambourines and "bones". The Virginia Minstrels opened at New York City 's Bowery Theater in 1843 and, in the words of one critic, "firmly fixed themselves" among the best minstrel groups. Alas, a tour of Britain proved less successful.

At home, however, blackface continued to be popular, and a group that became famed as the Christy Minstrels gained a national reputation. In 1857, Emmett joined a rival group, the Bryant Minstrels, for which he composed a number of songs without coming up with anything resembling a hit.

Then, in 1859, Emmett was told to writ e s omething on short notice. "One Saturday night," he later recalled, "as I was leaving Bryant's theater, [the director] called after me, 'I want a walk-around for Monday, Dan.'" Emmett said he would come up with something.

It was a rainy weekend, and the composer was not inspired. "I wish I was in Dixie ," he remarked to his wife. "Suddenly," Emmett recalled, "I jumped up and sat down at the table to work." In less than an hour he had the first verse and chorus. "After that it was easy," he recalled. "When my wife returned I sang it to her. 'It's about finished now, except the name. What shall I call it?' 'Why call it, I Wish I Was in Dixie 's Land,' sh e s aid. And so it was."