Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

[33rdaladrummer]

Does anyone know of a wartime or pre-war reference to this tune with the Turkey title? All of the period sheet music I have seen has the Zip title.

Also, has anyone seen a period version of this tune with the Turkey in the Straw rhythm we are all familiar with for the second strain?

I transposed Old Zip Coon from Howe's 1843 Accordeon Instructor to the key of D and compared it to a modern fife version in the key of D. The first strain is very similar in both versions, but the rhythm changes in the second strain.

All of the period sheet music I have found so far has a straight rhythm in the 2nd strain, so I am guessing this evolution is what made Zip Coon become Turkey in the Straw some time after the war.

[Silas]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

Been looking at Old Zip Coon much of late as I've been learning the tune for banjo. I haven't seen it listed as Turkey in the Straw in any of the versions I've seen. I have wondered when Turkey came about. Here are a few scanned Zip Coons I've reviewed :

The 1834 "famous comic song as sung by all the celebrated comic singers with wonder applause" including the great unPC art sketch :

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mussm&fileName=sm2/sm1834/360000/360780/mussm360780.db&recNum=1&itemLink=D?mussm:3:./temp/~ammem_GSC2::&linkText=0

Here's a "Crow Quadrille" from 1837 in G. It's a little different :

http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/levy-cgi/display.cgi?id=056.020.001;pages=5;range=1-5

Tim Twiss downloaded the Gumbo Chaff Perceptor (1851) which has Zip at page 12. It's in B-flat, but the pattern appears fairly similar to Howe's 1843 :

http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/1851-gumbo-chaff-tutor?id=2477478%3ATopic%3A5203&page=2#comments

For what it's worth, a wiki about Turkey in the Straw says the lyrics were published by Dan Bryant of Bryant's Minstrels in 1861. I haven't seen the sheet music, but I have done a quick search on the Library of Congress and Lester Levy websites. Some other pages claim or just note possible credit to Dan Emmett while he was with Bryant's Minstrels. I don't know the exact years that Emmett was with Bryant's, but we are talking about the CW years as Bryant's Minstrels was from 1857 to 1866. Here's the wiki :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_Coon

In the Levy collection, there's a sheet of Turkey in the Straw from 1899, but it's a little too "coonie" even for me :

http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/otcgi/llscgi60

[Jubilo]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

Dear Sir,
Our little emsemble sometimes performs "Natchez Under the Hill," which our fiddler states is pre-war ( not documented by me). A variation of "Turkey/Zip". Ever heerd of it ?
all for the old flag,
David Corbett

[Silas]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

Forgot to note that the similarity between Howe's 1843 accordeon instructor and Chaff's 1851 bano perceptor is likely because Gumbo Chaff is Elias Howe.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

Natchez under the Hill is in Knauff's 1839 Virginia reels collection. Knauff, later a member of the Buckley Serenaders, was also the composer of Wait for the Wagon. There is some good info on Knauff here:

http://www.alanjabbour.com/Fiddle_Tunes_of_the_Old_Frontier_Schick.pdf

"The tradition of the Upper South, which had been the original object of my focus, seemed at first to present a slightly different case. In the North there were always some fiddlers who could read music, but fiddlers in the Southern states were never music-readers. Thus the print and manuscript record was absent for most of the 19th century, except for publications from the minstrel stage, which contained a hard-to-sort-out mixture of Southern folk music and new popular compositions. But then I discovered a collection of tunes entitled Virginia Reels, published in Baltimore in 1839, before the rise in popularity of the minstrel stage. The collection was assembled by George P. Knauff, who was then serving as a music master and proprietor of a “Music and Fancy Store” in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Knauff clearly did not compose the tunes; rather, he compiled the collection by transcribing local fiddle tunes and adding a simple left-hand accompaniment."

I wish we could find the Dan Bryant version of Turkey in the Straw from 1861 to see if there is any truth to the claim from wikipedia. Perhaps a change in lyrics would result in the rhythm changing in the second strain.

The fiddler and fifers in the Echoes of the Blue & Gray DVD play our tune, and it is definitely the Turkey variant. But I guess this doesn't help us since the vets didn't care if the version they were playing was authentic or not!

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

I think I've found it. It's supposed to be at the Library of Congress. You have to search for Turkey in de Straw, not in the Straw, of course.

LC Control No.: unk84177387
LCCN Permalink: http://lccn.loc.gov/unk84177387
Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
Personal Name: [Emmett, Daniel Decatur?] [from old catalog]
Main Title: Turkey in de straw. Composed by Dan Bryant.
Published/Created: New York, H. B. Dodworth, c1861.
Description: [1], 4 p. fol.
Notes: Song, piano accompaniment.
LC Classification: M1622 .B (Case)
CALL NUMBER: M1622 .B (Case)
-- Request in: Performing Arts Reading Room (Madison, LM113)
-- Status: Not Charged

[joewhitney]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

We should make a trip down to the LOC, Will, because the only way to know for sure if the Rose Tree/Natchez/Zip Coon tune now called Turkey in the Straw was the same as Bryant's Turkey in De Straw is to look at Bryant's music.

I say that because from the description below, it sounds like Byrant composed a separate tune and called it Turkey in De Straw, and the only reason Zip Coon became associated with it was Bryant included that old melody with the new Turkey one, like Emmett including Albany Beef as a walkaround section in Dixie:
--------------------------------
According to James Fuld's "Book of World-Famous Music" (4th edition, 1966):

"Zip Coon," as "Turkey in the Straw" was originally known, was published about 1834 in five editions, priority uncertain. [description of the various editions follows]

Both George Washington Dixon on the one hand, and Bob Farrell and George Nichols on the other hand, claimed the authorship of "Zip Coon," a dispute not yet resolved.

The melody apparently acquired the name "Turkey in the Straw" in a strange way. On July 12, 1861, there was copyrighted a song by Dan Bryant entitled "Turkey in de Straw." The music and words of the song were new, but at the end there was included the "Old Melody" without words.
--------------------------------
Here is the chorus Bryant wrote for his new tune, which actually works pretty well with the old Zip melody:

Turkey in de straw, turkey in de hay,
Turkey in de straw, turkey in de hay,
Roll 'em up, an' twist 'em up, a high tuc-ka-haw,
An' twist 'em up a tune called, Turkey in the Straw.

Joe Whitney
2nd SC String Band
Md Line Field Music
and...Liberty Hall Associate Member

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon

The first part of this modern version of Turkey is almost identical to the Howe version, amazingly. And the Zip Coon drumbeat from Hart's 1862 manual goes better with the second part of Turkey than it does with the Zip fife part. Strange coincidence...

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Turkey in Straw / Old Zip Coon



Finally made it up to the LOC to photocopy the original sheet music from 1861. Posted this over at the minstrel banjo site. Surprisingly there didn't seem to be much interest.

When the B-strain to "Turkey in the Straw" came about is still a mystery. "Turkey in the Straw" is a modified version of Ole Zip Coon, but "Turkey in de Straw" is pretty much a completely different tune with a variation of the "old melody" tacked on at the end.