Annotation:Dandy Jim from Caroline (1)
Tune properties and standard notation
DANDY JIM FROM/OF CAROLINE [1]. AKA - "Dandy Jim (1)." AKA and see "Chicken-Foot and Sparrow-Grass" (Pa.), "Old Aunt Jenny." American, Reel or Breakdown. USA, southwestern Pa. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Bayard (1981), Southern (1983) and others identify this tune as coming from the American minstrel tradition of the mid-19th century. Hans Nathan (Dan Emmett and Negro Minstrelsy, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1962) dates the stage tune to c. 1844 and says the words and perhaps the tune were composed by minstrel Dan Emmett. As with many minstrel tunes there is confusion as to whether Emmett wrote the music or simply adapted a found folk tune, but Bayard says the tune crops up "everywhere" in American music (including play-party songs) in many guises under several titles. Bayard also found the tune in the British Isles in Kerr's Merry Melodies collection (c. 1875, vol. 1, p. 29 as "American Air") and in Frankl Roche's collection (vol. 2, 1912, No. 297 as the second figure of the second tune in the quadrille "The Orange and the Green").
Source for notated version: Hiram Horner (Westmoreland/Fayette Counties, Pa., 1944) [Bayard].
Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 326, pp. 291-192. Briggs (Briggs' Banjo Instructor), 1855; p. 11.
Recorded sources: