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Albert d'Ossché and Robert Force

and Its Adaptation for the Mountain Dulcimer

Let's turn to the Broadway stage in 1859. A man named Daniel Decatur Emmett has been asked to come up with a brief little ditty for what was called "travelin' music" -- a walkaround march of sorts. Bryant's Minstrels needed a catchy tune to pull people in off of the streets. It was either September or April, depending on which biographer you choose. But both agree it was cold and grey in New York City. What better way to escape the grey of the city streets than through a song?

Emmett came up with a bigger-than-life tune to perform with Bryant's black-face minstrel troupe and its catchy refrain, "I wish I was in Dixie", became a big hit. As the song's fame spread, it began to win affection in the South, especially as state after state swept into Secession. Confederate Brigadier General Albert Pike wrote new words and by popular acclaim, "Dixie's Land" became the national anthem of the Confederacy. After the war, Pike's words were largely forgotten and Emmett's original verses are what everyone sings today.

I love the idea that folk music chronicles and preserves the times, events and passions that would otherwise be swept from collective memory. For instance, in "Dixie's Land," Emmett has Will the weaver smiling as fierce as a forty-pounder. There's an image! Can any of you cannon buffs out there tell me what kind of bore that had? Fierce indeed. The closest I can come to relating was when I saw "Master and Commander." The miracle of Hollywood special effects had cannonballs coming right at you–yikes!

More on Emmett and Pike and the words to both versions can be found through the following web resources. I'll share some of my research, but remember, this is the web–anyone can post. Part of reference is always inference. History is at best murky–doubly so for folk tunes–that in most cases depend on hearsay–or is that songsay!

Some biographers attach a lot of significance to Pike's having been a Chief Justice of the Ku Klux Klan after the war. This first reference ignores that fact altogether.

Pike was, at the same time as being Chief Justice for the KKK, also a Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite of Masonry. It can be effectively argued to Pike's credit that what apparently was started as a benevolent Southern brotherhood was not what it was to become after Albert Pike held his brief pos. The next site discusses some of the history of the KKK, Pike's role in it, and also has the complete words to his adaptation of Dixie–"Everybody's Dixie."

Another, less contentious in context, iteration of Pike's adapted words, as well as a commentary from Daniel Emmett about the song, had he known it was going to become a war anthem, is at:

This site also notes that Texans modified the song to reflect arming in Texas. I haven't found any Unionized words yet, but I know they must be out there in an archive somewhere or even in cyberspace. This is very much like "Lily Marlene" being popular with both Allied and Axis troops during WWII. Both sides felt they owned it.

A fascinating site about Emmett and the origin of Dixie's Land can be found at:

This links to published works and leads for further folk research containing such tantalizing bits like the word, "Dixie," most likely evolved from New Orleans Creole banking houses' ten dollar bill–the dix–or what old–timers out here in the West, like my Dad, a logger, called a sawbuck. Most etymological sources credit this colorful term coming from the X-shape of a woodcutter's jig and the Roman numeral for ten. (I couldn't resist that aside.)

Wow! Watch yourself. Once you get going on this kind of research, it's addictive. You can certainly see that I regard folk songs as one of our best sources for the voices of the common people–not necessarily the ones who make history, but rather, the ones who lived it.

So how do you play it on the dulcimer?

Albert d'Ossché and I recorded this tune on our 1981 release on Kicking Mule Records, The Art of Dulcimer.

Listen to Robert Force and Albert d'Ossché play "Dixie."

We were particularly intrigued in finding a way of making the opening three notes of the tune really stand out. Rather than playing it as a cakewalk or shuffle, we wanted to set up a more martial, march-like feeling to the tune–a tempo that reflected bravery and optimism and the quick-step of those striding forth with purpose and commitment.

We accomplished this by striking the dulcimer forcefully across the strings in a full-strum downbeat while rapidly pulling off the sol-me (5-3) notes that start the tune. Think: percussive! Next, there is a slight staccato effect I like to think of as the spokes of wagon wheels looking like they are going backwards–the caissons keep rolling along! This can easily be accomplished by chopping at the strings in a cut time rhythm.

When we get to the lyric line: look away, we syncopate the rhythm that has the effect of juxtaposing what one expects to hear with a substituted, descant part. It helps the tune to stay lively, and although repetitive, gives it room to breathe.

Another technique that characterizes this rendition is that the bass string is often fretted as a parallel voice to the treble melody. Look at the tab. You'll see notations like 1–0–1, 2–0–2, 3–0–3, etc. This is the bass mirroring the treble. This adds a great tone contrast.

One more device we employ is to flat-pick the chords and the top of the refrains to get the notes to ring out individually, contrasting the two&ndashs;top fullness of the rest of the song.

Finally–almost operatically–we close the song with a long retard–a slowing down of the melody that eventually builds to a crescendo. We set it up with a reprise on the phrases: away, away —repeating that part of the melody five times and breaking out of it with full-length octave slide on the word: south — (down south in Dixie)–and then capping it off with flat-picked arpeggios at the end. Enchanting.

Have fun!