WAY UP NORTH IN DIXIE: A BLACK FAMILY'S CLAIM TO THE CONFEDERATE ANTHEM.

Traces the history of the song "I Wish I Was in Dixie's Land" to a nineteenth-century African-American family, the Snowdens, and reveals a family history as memorable as the song itself.

Relying on family and public records and oral history, the authors (Howard Sacks is chair of the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Kenyon College; Judith Sacks is an editor and researcher) present a credible and carefully researched case which attributes authorship of the Confederal anthem Dixie to an African American family of musicians. Thomas and Ellen Snowden, liberated from slavery and having moved to the Ohio frontier, formed the Snowden Family Band; they and then their children performed banjo and fiddle music for black and white audiences from the 1850s to the early 1900s. Dan Emmett, a white minstrel performer, claimed to have written Dixie in 1859; but the authors argue that the Snowdens, who swapped songs with Emmett, either wrote the song or coauthored it. The Sacks's analysis of 18th-century African American musical culture documents the ways in which this music was appropriated by white performers. Illustrated.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Howard Sacks (sociology, Kenyon Coll.) and Judith Rose Sacks, an independent researcher, have written a study much broader than its title indicates. To be sure, they argue that Dan Emmett, a blackface minstrel in the North, derived the idea of the song "Dixie" from contact with the Snowdens, a family of free black musicians from Ohio (a claim based largely on circumstantial evidence). Far more interesting is the book's re-creation of the history of this remarkable family from the 1830s through the late 19th century. Through the ingenious use of a few family letters and diaries and evidence of the lives of other Midwestern blacks, the authors paint a portrait of a courageous black family living through its music and overcoming deeply imbedded racism. A well-written work; highly recommended.
- Anthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.