- Style
- Bluegrass
- Tradition
- American fiddle
- Form
- Reel
- Key
- G
- Level
- 2
- Played on
- Fiddle
In the public domain. Source
Music
Click any note to start from there
Chord chart
History
Before it was Turkey in the Straw it was "Zip Coon," a blackface minstrel song published around 1834, whose authorship was claimed by three different performers. On July 12, 1861, Dan Bryant copyrighted a new song called "Turkey in de Straw" with the old tune attached as an "old melody," and the new name stuck. Scholars including Samuel Bayard think the tune itself joins the first part of the Scottish "Rose Tree" to the second part of "The Bonnie Black Eagle."
Eck Robertson and Henry Gilliland's recording of it was the third best selling country record of 1923, and the Skillet Lickers cut it in Atlanta in 1926. Burl Hammons of West Virginia told of a tall skeleton with a fiddle walking into his room one night when he was a boy and playing it better than he ever heard it played.
As I went down the new cut road, I met Miss Possum and I met Mr. Toad. And every time the toad would sing, The possum cut the pigeon wing.
As I was a-going down the road With a tired team and a heavy load I crack'd my whip and the leader sprung I says day-day to the wagon tongue