New arrangement by Rachel Grimes

Words and music by Henry Hart, originally published in 1870 by Kunkel Brothers, St. Louis, MO. Labeled a “Song and Dance”, this parlor tune was made popular by Irish-American minstrel entertainer Billy Emerson, who appears on the cover. Emerson performed in blackface with the Kunkel Nightingale Minstrels between 1864 and 1867. Known for his genteel style of song and dance, he formed Emerson and Manning’s Minstrels, which spent time in Cincinnati, Ohio and nearby Covington, Kentucky between 1869 and 1870. It is likely that Hart, a violinist and bandleader known around the region, would have been introduced to Emerson during this time.

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