Carolina Chocolate Drops - "Snowden's Jig"

The Carolina Chocolate Drops perform "Snowden's Jig" at the Birchmere on January 18, 2010.

This haunting song is also known as "Genuine Negro Jig." Rumor was that the Snowdens (a family of African-American string musicians living in Mount Vernon, Ohio) wrote many songs that were later made famous by others. Dan Emmett, a white musician from Ohio, is famous for having written "Dixie," "Old Dan Tucker," "Blue-Tailed Fly" and many other tunes. The truth is that he probably learned some of these songs from the Snowdens as early as the 1850s.

According to family legend, Ellen Cooper was a former slave. She was born in 1817 near Port Tobacco, in Charles County, MD. Her birthplace was the plantation of Alexander Greer. At the age of ten, Alexander Greer (by all accounts a kindly master, who liberated all of his slaves before his death) liberated Ellen. To make sure that she stayed free, in 1827 Ellen moved to Ohio with Mary Greer and her family. Mary Greer was very fond of Ellen and Ellen lived with them until she married. In 1827, Ellen was one of the few African-Americans in Knox County and she missed her family and her home. So, she wrote - or remembered - a song about the land of cotton. In 1834, she married Tom Snowden, a freed slave and entertainer. The couple had nine children, seven of which survived. All were musically gifted and, although Ellen and Tom could neither read nor write, their children were taught to do both. The Snowden family band consisted of five Snowden children. Two of the girls (Sophia and Annie) were adept at playing the fiddle - a rarity at the time. The son Ben played both fiddle and bones, while son Lew played the banjo. Phebe danced and at least one of the children played guitar (probably Annie, as a postmortem image of her shows a guitar in her hands) and another the flute. Lew's banjos were fretless and at least one was a six-stringer. As the Snowdens lived right beside Dan Emmett's grandparents in Mount Vernon, it's probable that Dan Emmett had heard of their songs. It's probable that he'd even met the Snowdens on several occasions.

In 1993, music historians Howard and Judy Sacks published a book entitled "Way Up North In Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem.'' They had spent twelve years on the book, sparked by a walk in a local graveyard. There, they saw a peculiar inscription on the tombstone of Ben and Lew Snowden that read: "They taught 'Dixie' to Dan Emmett.''

That's when they went door to door near the graveyard and met a family who took care of the Snowden family decades before. And there, in a living room, Howard and Judy Sacks struck gold. They were shown what remained of the Snowden family and the legend of "Dixie'' - a violin, two banjos, a scrapbook and a shoebox full of nearly forty letters, written from 1836 to the 1920s.

The letters became the backbone of their book. As for the banjos, that's the other part of this story. When the Carolina Chocolate Drops performed at a local church in Ohio, Howard and Judy Sacks attended the concert. They brought a copy of their book and one of the antique Snowden banjos. After the concert, they took the musicians to a Granville restaurant for dinner and told them the story of the Snowden family. Justin Robinson and his band mates held a homemade Snowden banjo that more than likely played "Genuine Negro Jig'' - and possibly "Dixie,'' too. It was magic.

Is the legend true? Nobody knows for sure. Dan Emmett claims to have written "Dixie" in 1859, while living in New York City. At the time, he was performing with Bryant's Minstrels. Most serious music scholars deny any Snowden involvement in the creation of "Dixie." Still, there's no denying the influence that the Snowden family had on string band music at the time.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Carolina Chocolate Drops
• Snowden's Jig
• Birchmere
• Alexandria

[elphish12]

so glad to hear that the Drops won a Grammy! Hard to imagine who could deserve it more.

[chaspc]

They played at Bonnaroo today - incredible old-style Southern music!

[stephieubanks]

Takes me to a place under the full Gemini moon, in the forest, dancing, pining for my lover, the haunting, aching, passion that never leaves your soul ~~~

[dwayneroby]

I gotta learn this

[mizfidget]

This tune is so haunting! I could just listen to it over and over!

[Elio34000]

En concert à MONTPELLIER le 17 Novembre 2010 au JAM

[baldy1]

class

[RratsArtStudio]

Fantastic!

[efoxx6]

saw them tonite in statesboro and this song just sank into my bones- this song is HAUNTED

[gilibird]

Dang, they're good.