The tune "Turkey in the Straw" was common and popular well before the tune
was heard on the minstrel stage. Like many catchy tunes, a variety of
lyrics were applied to the melody, which, of course, was common folk
practice. For a much more nuanced discussion of the tune, see Stephen
Winick's 2014 discussion on the American Folklife Center's blog Folklife
Today. I have appended part of his analysis. I would also point out that an
examination of tunes mentioned in the WPA interviews with the formerly
enslaved by Robert Winans suggests that "Turkey in the Straw" was a common
tune among Black people before the American Civil War. Robert B. Winans,
“Black Instrumental Music Traditions in the Ex-Slave Narratives,” *Black
Music Research Journal *10, no. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 43-53.

Powell was indeed a virulent racist. His sponsorship of the White Top
Mountain Folk Festival in the 1930s was largely defined by his attempt to
peddle the idea that the music of mountain whites embodied a mythical "pure
Anglo-Saxon" ideal.

Winick:  "The racist associations of the tune are only part of its legacy,
though, and are neither the oldest part nor the most recent. The tune has
roots in much older music, and has continued in forms largely devoid of
racial connotations. The origins of “Turkey in the Straw” hearken back to
British and Irish dance music. In her 1939 book Folk Songs of Old New
England, Eloise Hubbard Linscott (whose collection of recordings and
photographs is part of the AFC archive) identified “Turkey in the Straw” as
a variant of the British tune “The Rose Tree,” which is also related to the
Irish piece “The Rose Tree in Full Bearing.” You can hear a cylinder
recording of William Nathan “Jinky” Wells playing “The Rose Tree” in the
player below, from the James Madison Carpenter Collection. The recording is
AFC 1972/001 Cylinder 110."

Gregg Kimball

On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 8:27 AM Meyers, Terry L <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Interesting mention in Sunday’s NYT of Virginia’s own John Powell
>
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/arts/music/dvorak-new-world-symphony.html?searchResultPosition=2
>
> but rather anodyne given his White Supremacist involvement with the 1924
> Racial Purity laws and the development of Anglo-Saxon Clubs.
> At William and Mary, where he came to encourage a local Anglo-Saxon club,
> two racially charged pieces, “Turkey in the Straw” and his own “Banjo
> Picker, according to the student newspaper, ”were particularly
> well-received: both were “ardently applauded” and repeated “in response to
> the demands of the audience.”
> In a piece at the Lemon Project site, I note that “Turkey in the Straw”
> was popularized in blackface minstrel shows from the 1820s and 1830s.
> YouTube has a recording of “The Banjo Picker” made by Powell on a paper
> roll in 1917. The video shows several paragraphs about Powell and the
> piece; one of them notes that “The Banjo Picker” evokes “Dixie” in its
> opening measures and then ends “with the strains of ‘Dixie.’” Powell is
> quoted as saying that the “principal theme” is “a verbatim reproduction of
> a darky banjo-player’s version of the ‘Mississippi Sawyer’”; a “contrasting
> theme follows, based on the negro folk-song “Old John Hardy.’”
> For more, see
>             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Powell_(musician)
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Terry L.. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, Emeritus, The College
> of William and Mary, in Virginia, Williamsburg  23187
> ————————————————————————————————————————————————————
>  Have we got a college?  Have we got a football team?....Well, we can't
> afford both.   Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
>  --Groucho Marx, in "Horse Feathers."
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Dr. Gregg D. Kimball
Director of Public Services and Outreach
Library of Virginia
804-692-3722 (work)
804-909-4501 (cell)

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