Sing Praise of Indian Maids
#555 / Flood Time Capsule: 2009
A love affair with mythical Indian maidens was all the rage in the first decade of the 20th Century.
Sparked by the massive success of “Hiawatha,” a popular 1901 piano piece by Neil Moret, New York music publishers flooded the market with “Indian songs,” blending Western melodies with stereotypical tom-tom beats and pentatonic scales.
In the Floodisphere, two of those historic tunes — “Red Wing” and “ Snow Deer” — were played by The Flood in a medley 17 years ago this week when the band appeared at a Red Barn Radio gig in Lexington, Ky. Click the button below to hear that on-air performance, featuring solos by Joe Dobbs, Doug Chaffin and David Peyton:
Curiously, the guys thought they were playing a pair of old traditional folk songs. Only later did they learn the Tin Pan Alley roots of each tune.
About “Red Wing”
In 1907 “Red Wing” swept across the globe to become a staple of fiddle and folk repertoires. The composer of this hit was Kerry Mills (born Frederick Allen Mills), a classically trained violinist and instructor who traded academia at the Chicago Musical College for the bustling energy of New York City’s music publishing.
A transformative figure in popular music, Mills refined syncopated styles like the cakewalk into sophisticated, publishable hits. Before “Red Wing,” he already had secured his legacy with classics like “At a Georgia Camp Meeting” and the 1904 World’s Fair anthem “Meet Me In St. Louis, Louis.”
As a publisher, Mills was known as a champion of Black composers and for publishing early hits for Broadway legend George M. Cohan.
His “Red Wing” — in which he adapted the infectious “A” part of the melody from Robert Schumann’s piano solo “The Happy Farmer” — had a staggering reach.
The song was even the likely inspiration for stage and screen performance by “Princess Redwing” (real name: Lillian St. Cyr), the first Native American film star who was still performing the song on tour as late as 1964.
The tune traveled to Australia, where it was played for nearly every dance style, and to England, where it was parodied by soldiers singing about Charlie Chaplin. In America, it became a square dance favorite, and Woody Guthrie eventually repurposed the melody for his iconic anthem “Union Maid.”
And what about the composer? Mills in his final decades lived in California, where he worked in Hollywood as a writer and editor for radio and film. Despite his earlier status, though, he lived in near obscurity, dying at age 79 in 1948 from throat cancer.
About “Snow Deer”
In the wake of “Red Wing” and the success of its imitators, “Snow Deer” became another example of how a Tin-Pan-Alley pop hit could transform into a timeless folk standard. Once mistaken by pioneer fiddlers as a song of long ago, the song was actually the 1913 creation of Percy Wenrich, published through his own short-lived publishing firm.
Born in Joplin, Missouri, Wenrich earned the nickname “The Joplin Kid” early in his career. His musical roots were deep; his pianist mother provided his first lessons, while his father penned lyrics for his early tunes used in political rallies.
After studying in Chicago, Wenrich moved to New York City around 1909 with his wife and muse, vaudeville star Dolly Connolly. Together, they became a powerhouse duo; Wenrich wrote hits like “Moonlight Bay” and “Red Rose Rag” specifically for her, often accompanying her on stage and in recordings.
In 1913, Wenrich launched his own publishing house, which produced “Snow Deer” as a two-step. It quickly transcended its commercial origins, finding a second life in the North American fiddle repertoire.
By 1925, Jimmie Wilson’s Catfish String Band recorded it, and it later gained renewed fame through a 1961 Bob Wills recording featuring twin fiddles. Today, it remains a staple for fiddlers from Michigan to Pennsylvania.
Further Floodifying
“Red Wing” has never made it on to a Flood album, but “Snow Deer” scored the opening track of the band’s 2020 Speechless album.
Click the button below to hear as Doug switches to fiddle to lead the way, then hands it off to Paul Martin for a mandolin break: