Song of the Day 1/1: Ferko String Band, “Alabama Jubilee”

You probably don’t know the name of this tune, but if you’ve ever seen a commercial for Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade you’ve heard it. Ferko String Band sold 1 million copies when they released it as a single in 1955.

It was an oldie even then. “Alabama Jubilee” was published in 1915, toward the end of the ragtime era, when string bands were still a thing. So were lyrics reminiscent of the minstrel shows, a difficulty Ferko solved by playing it as a near-instrumental.

String bands were ancient history by 1955, having evolved into country and bluegrass, where the song became a standard after Red Foley had a No. 3 country hit with it in 1951. By then nobody was playing the song’s verse, with its reference to “darkies,” just repeating the chorus, where a reference to Aunt Jemima didn’t raise any eyebrows. Student of popular music history will note that playing the spoons on records was still a thing.

The song has become a standard, mainly because bluegrass players love it. Dozens of people have covered it in that style, but nobody had more fun doing it than Roy Clark, who had been playing it for years by the time he won a Grammy for it in 1981.