Dixie was written by Dan Emmet - a member of a troupe known as 'Bryant's Minstrels' who performed in New York in the middle of the 19th century. It seems that these singing sessions ended with a 'walk-a-round' dance for the whole Minstrel company, and Bryant asked Emmet to write a new one. "Dixie" was the result - expressing yearning for the warmth of the cotton fields of the South during the cold winter months of the American Mid-West.
