Golden Slippers

James A. Bland wrote "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" for the minstrel stage, apparently as a parody of the spiritual "Golden Slippers" that the Fisk Jubilee Singers had made popular. It is said to have sold over 100,000 copies by 1880. Bland was born on Long Island in 1854 to a free Black family and wrote hundreds of songs, including "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," but copyrighted only a few dozen and died poor in 1911.

The tune left the stage for the dance hall and turned up uncredited in folk song collections. Arizona fiddler Kenner Kartchner played it in harmony with a second fiddler for dances in the early 1900s, and it was one of the tunes expected at an Alabama fiddle contest in 1929.