rare practice in early minstrelsy. Musicologist Dale Cockrell argues that "Old Dan Tucker" represents a bridge between the percussive blackface songs of the 1830s and the more refined compositions of songwriters such as Stephen Foster. Cockrell says that, unlike previous minstrel songs, "Old Dan Tucker" is meant for more than just dancing; its tune is developed enough to stand on its own. Contemporary critics certainly noticed the difference. Y. S. Nathanson called it "the best of what I have denominated the ancient negro ballads. The melody is far superior to anything that had preceded it." Nathanson compared the song to works by Gaetano Donizetti and Daniel Auber. Composition The origin of the music of "Old Dan Tucker" has always been obscure, and no sheet music edition from 1843, the year of its first publication, names a composer. The first performance of the tune (but not lyrics) may have happened as early as 1841. The song has been alleged to refer to the notorious Daniel Tucker (1575-1625) of Jamestown Colony, Virginia, and Bermuda. The music may be from the oral tradition or may have been a product of collaboration. "Old Dan Tucker" has been credited to at least three different songwriters: Dan Emmett, J. R. Jenkins, and Henry Russell. In his old age, Emmett related the traditional story to his biographer, H. Ogden Wintermute: "I composed Old Dan Tucker in 1830 or 1831, when I was fifteen or sixteen years old." The biography says that Emmett first played the song in public at a performance by a group of traveling entertainers. They lacked a fiddle player, and the local innkeeper suggested young Emmett to fill in. Emmett played "Old Dan Tucker" to the troupe manager's liking, and he debuted on the Mount Vernon, Ohio village green in blackface to perform the song on the Fourth of July. Wintermute says that the name Dan Tucker is a combination of Emmett's own name and that of his dog. However, there is no evidence for any of this. Instead, Emmett may merely have written the words. Even these seem to partially derive from an earlier minstrel song called "Walk Along John" or "Oh, Come Along John", first published in various songsters in the early 1840s. Some verses have clear echoes in versions of "Old Dan Tucker": The Charles Keith company published "Old Dan Tucker" in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1843. The sheet music credits words