Annotation:Dixie Blossoms

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DIXIE BLOSSOMS. AKA - "Chicken Pie." Old-Time, Country Rag or Song Tune. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BB'. The tune was remembered by fiddler Art Galbraith as dating to around 1916, and was "a perennial favorite of his mother" (Reiner & Anick). Beisswenger & McCann add that it was played by a cousin for Galbraith's who fought in World War 1. Drew Beisswenger (2008) finds the source of the fiddle tune to be a composition by ragtime and song composer Percy Wenrich (1887-1952) who composed it in 1906 as "Dixie Blossoms March-Two-Step." He was also the composer the music of "Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet" (1909) and the ragtime melody "Peaches and Cream" (1905), among many others. Wenrich was born in Joplin, Missouri (he was known as "The Joplin Kid"), but moved to Chicago in 1901, and in 1909 removed to New York where he had a long career. However, his early influences were from his mother, an accomplished amateur pianist, and from the booming club and music scene in Joplin, home to several important ragtime composers and performers, black and white. A similar tune is "Chicken Pie," collected in Reynolds County, Missouri, however, it is not the "Chicken Pie" in Marion Thede's book, which is an unrelated tune.

Source for notated version: Art Galbraith (1909-1993, near Springfield, Missouri) [Beisswenger & McCann, Phillips, Reiner & Anick].

Printed sources: Beisswenger & McCann (Ozarks Fiddle Music), 2008; p. 38. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), vol. 2, 1995; p. 41. Reiner & Ancik (Old Time Fiddling Across America), 1989; p. 122.

Recorded sources: Rounder 0133, Art Galbraith - "Dixie Blossoms" (1981).

See also listing at: Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]