Bluegrass songs (Music Guide)

Source: Wikipedia. Commentary (music and lyrics not included). Pages: 28. Chapters: Bill Monroe songs, Earl Scruggs songs, Flatt and Scruggs songs, Nickel Creek songs, Osborne Brothers songs, The John Butler Trio songs, The Stanley Brothers songs, Old Dan Tucker, Bill Monroe discography, John Henry, Down in the Willow Garden, Sitting on Top of the World, Man of Constant Sorrow, Rocky Top, Old Settler's Song, Nickel Creek discography, Shine, Blue Moon of Kentucky, Orange Blossom Special, Cotton Fields, Old Rosin the Beau, The Wayfaring Stranger, When You and I Were Young, Maggie, Pretty Polly, The Ballad of Jed Clampett, Song of the South, Used to Get High, The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane, Wagon Wheel, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Better Than, Molly and Tenbrooks, What You Want, I Still Miss Someone, The Lighthouse's Tale, Zebra, Funky Tonight, The Devil's Dream, Red Wing, Can the Circle Be Unbroken, Good Excuse, When You Come Back Down, Angel Band, One Way Road, This Side, Fox on the Run, Scotch & Chocolate, Kentucky Waltz, Tiny Broken Heart, Blackberry blossom. Excerpt: "Old Dan Tucker", also known as "Ole Dan Tucker", "Dan Tucker", and other variants, is a popular American song. Its origins remain obscure; the tune may have come from oral tradition, and the words may have been written by songwriter and performer Dan Emmett. The blackface troupe the Virginia Minstrels popularized "Old Dan Tucker" in 1843, and it quickly became a minstrel hit, behind only "Miss Lucy Long" and "Mary Blane" in popularity during the antebellum period. "Old Dan Tucker" entered the folk vernacular around the same time. Today it is a bluegrass and country music standard. The first sheet music edition of "Old Dan Tucker", published in 1843, is a song of boasts and nonsense in the vein of previous minstrel hits such as "Jump Jim Crow" and "Gumbo Chaff". In exaggerated Black Vernacular English, the lyrics tell of Dan Tucker's exploits in a strange town, where he fights, gets drunk, overeats, and breaks other social taboos. Minstrel troupes freely added and removed verses, and folk singers have since added hundreds more. Parodies and political versions are also known. The song falls into the idiom of previous minstrel music, relying on rhythm and text declamation as its primary motivation. Its melody is simple and the harmony little developed. Nevertheless, contemporary critics found the song more pleasant than previous minstrel fare. Musicologist Dale Cockrell argues that the song represents a transition between early minstrel music and the more European-style songs of minstrelsy's later years. This 1877 illustration from Scribner's Magazine shows the Dan Tucker character as a rural black man."Old Dan Tucker" as originally published exemplifies the masculine boasting songs that predominated in early minstrelsy. Modern analysts emphasize the song's rawness, racism, and disdain for social taboos. In ersatz Black Vernacular English, the song uses short, active words such as runnin and cryin, to portray Dan Tucker as a rough-and-ready black man in the mold of Ji