Annotation:Boatman's Dance (1)
X:1 T:Boatman's Dance [1] M:2/4 L:1/8 B:Gumbo Chaff - The Complete Preceptor for the Banjo (1851, p. 9) N: A later edition of the earliest known banjo tutor, published in 1848. It was written by Elias Howe, whose pseudonym Gumbo Chaff N:is taken from Thomas Dartmouth Rice's 1834 blackface character. The 1851 edition was published in Boston by Oliver Ditson. N:In 1850 Howe sold some of his works to Ditson (this one among them) and agreed not to publish similar works for ten years. Z:AK/FIddler's Companion K:G d|ee d>B|ee d>d|ee d>B|dd B>d| ee dB|ee d>d|ee d>B|dd B>G| BG A>B|d2 zd|B>G A>B|G2 zG| BG A>B|dd GG/A/|Bd/d/ AB/B/|G2G2| g2 gg|ag e2|G/B/e/d/ Bd/d/|AB Gz||
BOATMAN'S DANCE [1]. AKA and see "Dance Boatman Dance (1)." American (originally), English; Minstrel song, Step-dance and Morris Dance Tune (2/4 time). G Major (Wade). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Wade): ABCC. An American blackface minstrel tune with words, also used as a vehicle for step dancing. In England "Boatman's Dance" was employed as a vehicle for a morris dance in North-West Morris, for either polka step or single step. The tune was entered in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter (1774-1861), a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England, where it appears as "The Niger's Quadrille No. 1 -- Boatsman's Dance." Geoff Woolfe notes that Dan Emmett's "Boatman's Dance" minstrel setting was published in London in 1844, by D'Almaine.
See also "Boatsman (2)" for version in old-time tradition.
