"When that Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'"

This song and the 78 RPM recording featured here involve two of the best known figures in America popular music in the 20th century, Irving Berlin and Tommy Dorsey. Let's investigate.

Irving Berlin was born into the Russia of the Tsars in 1888; by the age of five he arrived in the United States. He published his first song in 1907; his first big hit was "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. For the next six decades this Russian immigrant would contribute some 1500 songs to the Great American Songbook. He also wrote the scores for 20 Broadway productions and 15 Hollywood films. 

His best known songs include "God Bless America", "White Christmas" and "There's No Business Like Show Business." Singers ranging from Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland to Martina McBride, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan and Lady Gaga have recorded his compositions. Berlin died in 1989. Composer Jerome Kern once declared that "Irving Berlin has no place in American music--he is American music." 

Berlin wrote "When that Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'" in 1912. The song was one of several he wrote about the idealized South, a very popular topic in American culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This topic was a popular one among Tin Pan Alley writers at the time. Some of Berlin's other titles in the genre include "Down in Chattanooga" (ca. 1912), "When It's Night Time in Dixie Land" (ca 1912) and "Florida by the Sea" (ca. 1922). I wonder if Berlin ever visited the South before he wrote these tunes. 

Tommy Dorsey (1905-1956) was a very successful trombonist, composer, conductor and band leader during the Big Band era. Born in Pennsylvania, he was the younger brother of Jimmy Dorsey, who also achieved great success as a musician and big band leader. The two brothers collaborated in the Dorsey Brothers Band/Orchestra during the 1920's and 1930's. 

By the mid thirties Tommy was striking out on his own. The song featured here was recorded in 1938 by Dorsey and his Clambake Seven, which was active from 1935 until 1956. The group often played Dixieland style tunes during performances of Dorsey's larger bands. The 10" 78 RPM is a Victor recording, #25821. The B side, "Everybody's Doing It", is also an Irving Berlin song. 

Relevant photos etc are below. I've made a few comments below the sheet music cover. Finally, I've included the song's lyrics with its reference to "Alabama's new mown hay."

Source: Internet Archive

Irving Berlin at the piano

Source

Tommy Dorsey with his instrument

Source: Wikipedia

Our song is on Disc 2 of this three disc set. 

Ted Snyder (1881-1965) was a composer, lyricist and music publisher. He hired Berlin as a staff writer in 1909; they later became business partners. I have been unable to identify the young "Apollo" whose photograph adorns this cover. Perhaps he was a popular singer of the day who included this song in his performances. 



When The Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves For Alabam'

I've had a mighty busy day
I've had to pack my things away
Now I'm going to give the landlord back his key
The very key
That opened up my dreary flat
Where many weary nights I sat
Thinking of the folks down home who think of me
You can bet you'll find me singing happily

[chorus:]
When the midnight choo-choo leaves for Alabam'
I'll be right there
I've got my fare
When I see that rusty-haired conductor-man
I'll grab him by the collar 
And I'll holler
"Alabam'! Alabam'!"
That's where you stop your train
That brings me back again
Down home where I'll remain
Where my honey-lamb am
I will be right there with bells
When that old conductor yells
"All aboard! All aboard!
All aboard for Alabam'"

[2nd verse:]
The minute that I reach the place
I'm goin' to overfeed my face
'Cause I haven't had a good meal since the day 
I went away
I'm goin' to kiss my Pa and Ma
A dozen times for ev'ry star
Shining over Alabama's new mown hay
I'll be glad enough to throw myself away


Source: Song Lyrics

Mobile and "Blues in the Night"

I am always on the lookout for appearances of Alabama-related things in popular culture and came across this one recently. Over the life of this blog I've posted several items discussing songs from the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries that relate to Alabama in some fashion. You can read two of the posts here and here.

This example is a bit different--a shout out to various cities including Mobile. The song is "Blues in the Night", which first appeared in the 1941 film of the same name. The song has become a standard; versions by many singers can be found on YouTube. Everyone from Peggy Lee and the Benny Goodman Orchestra to Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Rosemary Clooney and Amy Winehouse have recorded it. The piece was nominated for a Best Song Academy Award. 

The film is an odd one, a little crime musical if you can believe it. The story follows a ragtag group of jazz musicians as they find and lose great success and learn that their original life riding the rails from town to town was not so bad. 

Richard Whorf plays pianist and leader Jigger Pine, and Jack Carson is the loudmouth trumpet player. Priscilla Lane is Carson's angelic and pregnant wife. The clarinetist is played by Elia Kazan in his acting days before he became one of Hollywood's best known producers and directors. Of course there's a gangster (Lloyd Nolan) and his sometime moll (Betty Field) to add the crime element. 

I remember seeing this film years ago and enjoying it. I watched it again recently and found it a bit silly and over the top in places, but still worth seeing. The cast is great at chewing the scenery, and there's some good music. Betty Field is a great femme fatale. 

Now about that song. I don't remember catching the reference to Mobile the first time I saw the film, but I did on this viewing. The music was written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, two giants of American popular song in the 20th century. Together and with others they both made numerous contributions to the "Great American Songbook".

During their collaboration in the 1940's the pair wrote other hits including "That Old Black Magic" and "One More for My Baby (and One More for the Road)". Arlen wrote film and Broadway music for many hits with other partners including the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz. Mercer also spent much of his career in Hollywood working in the film industry. 

Many popular songs about the South in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries were written by northerners selling an idealized vision of Dixie; most of them probably never traveled below the Mason-Dixon Line. Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia, and exposed to much African-American music growing up. We can probably attribute his choice of town names and music for the song to that upbringing. Now about that woman he mentions....
 
The film shows up periodically on Turner Classic Movies. A trailer can be found here. 

Harold Arlen [1905-1986]

Source: Wikipedia

Johnny Mercer [1909-1976]

Source: Wikipedia

"Blue in the Night"

Lyrics by Johnny Mercer

My mama done told me when I was in knee pants 
My mama done told me, "Son, A woman will sweet talk
And give you the big eye but when that sweet talk is done
A woman's a two face, a worrisome thing who will leave you to sing
A worrisome thing
Who will leave you to sing 
The blues in the night

Now the rain's a fallin'. Hear the train a callin' Hoowee! 
Hear that lonesome whistle 
Blowin across the trestle Hoowee! 
A hoowee ta hoowee, clickety clack 
It's echoing back the blues in the night.

The evening breeze will start the trees to crying
And the moon will hide it's plight
When you get the blues in the night
So take my word the mocking bird
Will sing the saddest kind of song
He knows things are wrong
And he's right

From Natchez to Mobile, From Memphis to St. Joe
Wherever... 
I've been in some big towns, and I've heard me some big talk 
I've been to some big towns
I've heard me some big talk 
But there is one thing I know
A woman's a two face
A worrisome thing who will leave you to sing
The blues in the night 

My mama was right, my mama was right
There's blues in the night

"Alabama Slide" A Fox Trot

In a recent blog post, I discussed a 1925 recording by Fred Hamm & His Orchestra of the "shimmy fox trot", "Flag that Train (to Alabam')". ] Here I discuss a more traditional fox trot published in 1915, the instrumental "Alabama Slide". 

Charles L. Johnson was a song composer born in Kansas City, Kansas; he died in Kansas City, Missouri. He spent his life in those two cities. Johnson wrote some 300 pieces, including 40 rags, but also waltzes, tangos, cakewalks, marches and novelty songs. In other words, he worked in many of the popular music genres of his time. 

You can find out much more about his life and work here. He was so prolific that he published some of his songs under pseudonyms. Johnson wrote music until his death at 74. Four of his ragtime pieces sold over one million copies during his lifetime. 

Songs featuring Sunny South and Dixie themes and places were also popular during his early career. I suspect that's the only reason "Alabama" appears in the title of this piece; I doubt Johnson ever came south. 

You can watch a 2010 video of John Remmers playing "Alabama Slide" here. 

More comments are below.

[

Charles L. Johnson [1876-1950]

Source: Wikipedia 

Johnson's "Crazy Bone Rag" was not published until 1918.  This cover of "Alabama Slide", originally published in 1915, must be a later edition. 

Fred John Adam Forster (1878–1956) entered the music business in Chicago in 1903 as a jobber, and later moved into publishing. He published several songs by Johnson.  

A puzzle about this cover is the handwritten notation "Iva Reading Empire Theatre" in the upper right. Did one of the sheet music's owners see Iva Reading play this tune at an Empire Theatre somewhere?

The entire sheet music can be found at the Indian University Sheet Music Collections.

"Flag that Train (to Alabam')"

I've done a couple of posts on this blog devoted to songs about Alabama from the 19th and early 20th centuries. You can read them here and here. I've also written one on songs about Birmingham. I'll be continuing this theme in some posts about individual songs and here's the first one.

This "shimmy fox trot" was recorded on either April 30 or May 1, 1925, in Camden, New Jersey. The Victor Talking Machine Company had it's recording and manufacturing operations there; the firm was purchased by RCA in 1925. What's a "shimmy fox trot", you ask? I presume it was a combination of a 1920's dance craze and the foxtrot. 

Fred Hamm was a cornet player and singer who in 1925 took over the Benson Orchestra founded by Edgar Benson. With his three bandmates Dave Bennett, Chauncey Gray, and Bert Lown he wrote the popular "Bye Bye Blues." A list of some of the group's recordings can be found here. Recordings on YouTube are here. 

A recording of "Flag that Train" is here. Lyrics are below. I've been unable so far to learn anything about the songwriters "Richmond; McPhall; Rothschild".

This song belongs to a couple of standard categories. The authors may never have been to Alabama or other southern states. The "Sunny South" was a fantasy trope used by many Tin Pan Alley-type writers to stand for a far-away paradise. The notion of catching the train back to see your loved one was also popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. 

I guess part of the title was added in Spanish for such markets in the Western Hemisphere. 

Source: Internet Archive, where you can also hear this recording

Come on and flag that train
I'm on my way again
Back to that home of mine below the line in Dixie
My folks are waiting there
I'll fill that vacant chair
And with sweet Madeline, that gal of mine, I'll be

Come on and flag that train
I'm bound for home again
For when I'm roaming, I'm as selfless as a lamb
Oh lordy, listen here
Don't miss that engineer
So flag that train to Alabam'

Source: LyricWiki

Some More Early Alabama Songs

In June 2015 I posted an item on "Some Alabama Songs from the Early 20th Century." Since there are so many of these tunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I thought I would look at a few more examples. There are plenty of others for additional posts as well. 

As I said then, "Alabama has inspired many songs over the decades by natives, residents and people who have never even visited the state. In June 2014 I wrote a post on some songs related to Birmingham. I'll be returning to this rich topic at some point in the future as well." So here I am. 

Discussions of each song are below. 

Source: New York Public Library 

The sheet music cover of this ditty from 1901 has several things to notice. There are stalks of wheat and in the lower left corner an outline map of the state. The tune is "That Famous Alabama Song" that has been "Sung with Great Success" by Zelma Rawlston, whose photograph adorns the middle of the sheet. 

The New York Public Library entry for the song gives this summary of the lyrics:  "A man standing on a pier looks at a boat named Alabama and reminisces about his home plantation; the ship's captain offers to take him back home and he returns to his plantation." You can find the sheet music with lyrics at the NYPL site. Frederick Allen Mills [1869-1948], the New York publisher, was also a ragtime composer in the early part of the 20th century.  

Will D. Cobb [1876-1930] was a lyricist and composer born in Philadelphia. Gus Edwards [1879-1945], a native of Germany, was a songwriter who also managed vaudeville theaters. He discovered a number of performers who went on to great fame such as Eddie Cantor and Groucho Marx. Bing Crosby played Edwards in the biopic The Star Maker [1939]. The pair also collaborated on five songs for a 1902 musical version of The Wizard of Oz. Rawlston was a popular singer of the day who often performed as a male impersonator. The page on Rawlston here has a different sheet music cover for this song with Rawlston in drag. 

Source: Mississippi State University Libraries

L.W. "Libbie" Mehr was married to Charles Mehr, who in the early 1920's opened Mehr's Music Store & Novelty Shop on 5th Avenue North in Birmingham. The store sold everything from sheet music and instruments to costumes and magic paraphernalia. Libbie helped her husband in the store and also wrote songs. "Alabama Blues" was one of those tunes. On June 10, 1922, the song was recorded by Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds in New York City.

The song was published by Williams Music House in Birmingham, then located at 1818 3rd Avenue. The photo below shows the store on 4th Avenue North, after a move, probably before 1938.

Source: Birmingham Public Library 

Murray in 1899

Source: Library of Congress

Written and first recorded in 1915, "Alabama Jubilee" is considered an American standard and has been recorded many other times since by everyone from Chet Atkins to Roy Clark, Doc Watson, Leon Redbone and Jerry Lee Lewis. You can find the sheet music and lyrics here. Issued in March of that year, the sheet music quickly sold almost a million copies. 

George L. Cobb [1886-1942] wrote the music for "Alabama Jubilee" and Jack Yellen [1892-1991] wrote the lyrics. Cobb wrote over 200 musical compositions that include ragtimes, marches and waltzes. Much more about Cobb can be found here. Yellen also wrote the lyrics to a pair of other standards, "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Ain't She Sweet" as well as songs and screenplays for many films and Broadway musicals.

Cobb and Yellen collaborated early in both their careers, beginning in 1909. Several of their collaborations were "Dixie" songs; others included "All Aboard for Dixieland" and "Are You from Dixie?" Yellen was Jewish, born in Poland and raised in Buffalo, New York. Cobb was born in New York state. Like creators of so many Alabama-related tunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Cobb and Yellen wrote in popular genres using popular images of the day and may never have visited the South, much less Alabama. 

Elizabeth Murray was a musical and comedy performer in vaudeville. Jerome H. Remick [1867-1931] was a musical publisher based in Detroit. You can watch a version here of the song recorded in September 2015 by the Skip Parsons Riverboat Jazz Band. 

A few other recordings of "Alabama Jubilee" can be found here.

Source: New York Public Library

The sheet music of this song gives Harry "D." Miller as the composer, but that apparently should be Harry "S." Miller. He was born in Philadelphia in 1867, but spent most of his life as a prolific composer, lyricist and playwright in Chicago and New York. Some of Miller's other songs can be found here.

I have been unable to find any information on lyricist Edith Willard. Whitney-Warner Publishing Co. was purchased by Jerome H. Remick in 1898.

The Peerless Quartet was a male singing group that started in the 1890's and toured and recorded until 1928. They recorded hundreds of songs, enjoyed years of great popularity and are considered a major influence on the barbershop quartet style of singing. A massive list of their recordings from 1908 until 1920 is available. 

 The Quartet recorded "In Alabama, Dear, With You" on two different dates. The Victor recording shown above was made in Camden, New Jersey, on September 27, 1915. The group had also recorded the song on August 12 for Columbia. 

You can listen to the Victor recording here.

The Peerless Quartet recorded three other songs related to Alabama: "Take Me to My Alabam'" (October 3, 1916), "Musical Sam from Alabam'" (May 29, 1917, and February 28, 1918). and "Alabama Blacksheep (Won't You Return to My Fold)" (October 18, 1923). I'll be covering those in future entries in this blog series. 

The 20sJazz.com site has a recording of this song by the great Duke Ellington and His Kentucky Club Orchestra. That site gives this information about the personnel involved:

"This recording was produced in New York City on November 29th 1926 featuring Bubber Miley and Louis Metcalf trumpets, Joe Nanton trombone, Prince Robinson clarinet & tenor sax, Otto Hardwick clarinet, soprano, alto, & baritone sax, Duke Ellington piano & director, Fred Guy banjo, Bass Edwards tuba, and Sonny Greer drums."

Ellington and this group made two recordings of the tune, one on November 29, 1926, and the second on February 28, 1927, both in New York City for different companies, Vocalion and Brunswick.

A page of the sheet music is below. Also note the "New Birmingham Breakdown" recorded in the following decade.

As best I can determine, the Spanish phrase on the record, "El Quiebro de Birmingham" would translate literally as "The Sidestep of Birmingham". I presume it was included for the recording's distribution in Latin America, but I've yet to investigate that assumption.

Recorded March 5, 1937, in NYC



Several songs have associated the concepts of a woman, Alabama, and a rose. I discuss several of them below. 

Source: University of Alabama Libraries


This song written by composer Roy L. Burtch and lyricist Claude L. Barker appeared in 1910. A bit about Burtch can be learned from this 1905 marriage notice. Burtch and his bride Harriet were living in Indianapolis in 1905. I have been unable to find out anything about either Barker, or the young lady to whom the song is dedicated, "Miss Anna Louise Crews, Monrovia, California." The song was published by the Wulschner-Stewart Company founded in Indianapolis by Emil Wulschner in 1888. His stepson Alexander Stewart soon joined the company, which lasted until 1914. 

The sheet music cover of another song with the same title from 1913 can be found here. The cover says that song is by Milton Weil and Stanley Murray and issued by Tell Taylor Music Company. Weil owned a music company in Chicago during the 1920's and 1930's. William "Tell" Taylor [1876-1937] was a vaudeville performer and composer of more than 200 songs, including "Down By the Old Mill Stream". He founded his music publishing company in Chicago in 1907. I have been unable to find any information about Stanley Murray.

Then there is "Alabama Rose" by country singer Bobby Bare.

Silas Sexton Steele, a native of Philadelphia, started off as a actor in the mid-1830's but moved into writing, eventually creating more than 40 melodramas, comic operas, and musical burlesques. Two collections of these works can be found here. Many of these featured songs, including the 1846 "Rose of Alabama" which continues  to be performed and recorded today. 

Lyrics of that 1846 tune as recorded by Bobby Horton:


Away from Mississippi's vale,
With my ol' hat there for a sail,
I crossed upon a cotton bale,
To Rose of Alabamy.

Cho: Oh brown Rosie,
Rose of Alabamy.
A sweet tobacco posey
Is my Rose of Alabamy.
A sweet tobacco posey
Is my Rose of Alabamy.

I landed on the far sand bank,
I sat upon the hollow plank,
And there I made the banjo twank,
For Rose of Alabamy.

Oh, arter d'rectly bye and bye,
The moon rose white as Rosie's eye,
Den like a young coon out so sly,
Stole Rose of Alabamy.

I said sit down just where you please.
Upon my lap she took her ease.
"It's good to go upon the knees,"
Said Rose of Alabamy.

The river rose; the cricket sang,
The lightnin' bug did flash his wing,
Den like a rope my arms I fling,
'Round Rose of Alabamy.

We hugged how long I cannot tell.
My Rosie seemed to like it well.
My banjo in the river fell.
Oh Rose of Alabamy.

Like alligator after prey,
I jump in but it float away,
And all the while it seem to say,
"Oh Rose of Alabamy."

Now every night come rain or shower,
I hunt that banjo for an hour;
And see my sweet tobacco flower,
Oh Rose of Alabamy.

Oh fare thee well you belles of Spain,
And fare thee well to Liza Jane,
Your charms will all be put to shame,
By Rose of Alabamy




I have also come across a 1910 song, "My Rose of Alabama" by a prolific composer of the day, Alfred J. Lawrance. I have yet to find more information about this song. 

Some Alabama Songs from the Early 20th Century

You just never know where some history will pop up. A few months ago wife Dianne and I visited our daughter Becca Leon and husband Matt in Tuscaloosa. On this trip we took in the Black Warrior Brewing Company since we have done Druid City several times. One wall downstairs near the bar features large framed sheet music covers of three old songs related to Alabama in some way. Here's what I found about those tunes and a few others after a bit of research.

Alabama has inspired many songs over the decades by natives, residents and people who have never even visited the state. In June 2014 I wrote a post on some songs related to Birmingham. I'll be returning to this rich topic at some point in the future as well. 

As noted at the end, these images come mostly from digital collections at the U.S. Library of Congress. The University of Alabama digital collections include the Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture: Sheet Music which has numerous examples of songs related to Alabama.

"Alabama Lullaby" is subtitled "A Unique, Dreamy Southern Song." The piece was written by Cal DeVoll and published by the New York City firm of Leo Feist in 1919. Feist, who died in 1930, became one of the largest publishers of popular music in the world. The only other bit of information I've discovered so far about composer DeVoll is that his "The Hello Song" was used in the 1990 film Crazy People. 

"Alabama Moon" was published in 1917 by Jerome H. Remick's firm in Detroit. Between 1914 and 1917 George Gershwin composed many songs for the company. The lyrics for this piece were written by J. Will Callahan; he died in 1946. One of his best know songs is "Smiles". Egbert Van Alstyne was a very popular composer of music for songs until about the time this one appeared. Among his many hits were "Navajo", "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" and "Pretty Baby." He continued composing into the 1930's and died in 1951.  

Below I'm including pages 2,3 and 4 of this song's publication to give an idea of what complete published song sheets looked like. Sorry the clarity is not better. You can find the pages here on the Library of Congress' web site if you'd like to enlarge and read the lyrics.



Source

Another "Alabama Moon" appeared in 1920, written by George Hamilton Green. He was a xylophonist, composer and recording artist very popular in the early 20th century. Green died in 1970. The Sam Fox company was founded in Cleveland in 1906. In addition to numerous popular songs, the company was the first in the U.S. to publish film scores. According to Ryan Lewis' dissertation on Green, "Alabama Moon" became one of the most popular songs in 1920 both in print and as a recording. The song was part of a post-World War I boom in songs that depended on utopian visions of the antebellum South. Publisher Fox heavily promoted the song, using cotton fields, farmhouses, moons with smiling faces and minstrels in black face in his advertising. The waltz was recorded by several different groups featuring Green on different labels in 1920. 



  

This 1913 song has music composed by Rennie Cormack and lyrics by Douglas Bronston. The Joe Morris Music Company in New York published it. I have found very little on the two individuals or the music company; links give some more of Cormack's compositions and other songs published by Morris. I'm as yet unsure if this Bronston is the same one credited with writing a number of film scripts between 1915 and 1928. More info about that Bronston is here. He was born in 1887 and died in 1951.

"In Alabama" appeared in 1900. Composer Charles B. Lawlor was a vaudeville performer and composter who immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in 1869. Perhaps his most famous song melody was "The Sidewalks of New York" from 1894. The song gained another round of popularity from its use at the 1928 Democratic National Convention in the city. I have not found much on Carroll Fleming except references to other songs for which he provided the lyrics. One of those is the 1901 "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rules the World."

I have also found very little on the Lyric Music Publishing Company. This song sheet cover gives New York City as its location; another song sheet from 1918 I saw on the net gave Seattle. Perhaps the company relocated after "In Alabama" was published.

I haven't yet found anything on Ellen Orr, one of the composers of this "novelty song" published in 1915. I did find some information about Harry DeCosta on the Internet Movie Data Base. He was born in 1885 and died in 1964. A pianist for music publishers, he also wrote and composed for radio programs. His song "Tiger Rag" has appeared in a number of films, including Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005. The song's publisher was Marcus Witmark & Sons, founded in New York City in 1886. The company was a major publisher of tunes for New York City's Tin Pan Alley until its purchase by Warner Brothers in 1929. 

"On Mobile Bay" appeared in 1910 with lyrics by Earle C. Jones and music by Charles N. Daniels. I haven't found anything on these gentlemen, but the song's publisher was the major Detroit form of Jerome H. Remick. 

This image is the label from a 1919 recording featuring tenors Charles Hart and Lewis James. Hart is still a mystery, but James was a very busy singer into the 1930's. Born in 1892, he died in 1959. Ballard MacDonald [1882-1935] was a lyricist associated with New York City's Tin Pan Alley. "Mary Earl" was one of several pseudonyms used by the prolific composer Robert King. The conductor of the orchestra was French-Canadian Rosario Bourdon, who spent most of his career at the Victor Talking Machine Company.



And now we come to our final example of this post, a "ragtime two step" by Scott Joplin from 1902. Born in 1867 or 1868, Joplin became famous as a ragtime pianist and composer before his death in 1917. He was living in St. Louis at the time he wrote "A Breeze from Alabama" and the other songs listed on the cover sheet demonstrate his popularity. The song was one of more than 40 he composed in addition to a ballet and two operas. 

One question to ask about all these songs is whether any of the lyricists or composers ever visited Alabama or even the South. Scott Joplin was born in Texas, so at least one of them got that close! This phenomenon of popular songs about the South written by outsiders is explored in John Bush Jones' book, Reinventing Dixie: Tin Pan Alley's Songs and the Creation of the Mythic South published by Louisiana State University Press in 2015. I've recently purchased this book and hope it will be a rich source of information about the songs and their lyricists, composers and other personnel as well as the companies involved.

In a future post I'll examine some more songs related to Alabama from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Unless otherwise noted, all sheet music covers etc. are taken from two digital sources via the U.S. Library of Congress, Historic Sheet Music Collection 1800-1922 or the Celebrates the Songs of America .