Posted on 09/17/2009 4:13:58 PM PDT by BigReb555
Edited on 09/17/2009 5:43:19 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
In 1859, Ohio Native Dan Emmett first performed “Dixie” New York City. Two years later, on February 18, 1861, the band played Dixie at the Inauguration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Montgomery, Alabama.
“...OLD TIMES THERE ARE NOT FORGOT...” (singing at the top of my lungs!)
A long time ago, Arthur Fiedler brought the Boston Pops to Reynolds Coliseum at NC State for a Friends of the College concert. (circa 1862 or so)
The concert was fantastic. The crowd loudly and longly clamored for encores. Finally after about three or four, he came out and the Pops played Dixie. Everyone stood up. Fiedler left the stage about halfway through and the concert was over.
You will comply. /sarc
Seriously, I love “Dixie.” And I really like Mickey Newbury’s “American Trilogy” as performed by Mickey and by Elvis.
that would be 1962, not 1862
Interesting bit of history
LOOK AWAY, LOOK AWAY, DIXIE LAND.
here was a time in America when football games started with the National Anthem, a prayer and the teams were Rebels and Indians and the band played Dixie.
It is gone now, but like the South; it will rise again.
Deo vindice
There’s a contingent here on FR who will tell you that the Battle Hymm of the Republic, with all that “fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword” stuff, is a fascist war song and that if you like it you must hate the south and freedom.
“...1962, not 1862...”
I wasn’t sure. Arthur Fiedler was pretty old when he died.
Truth is marching on!
/s
I don’t care who you are. If you don’t get really stirred up when the band plays “Dixie,” you have no soul. Yankee, Rebel, Indian, Italian... That’ll get your heart pumping.
My high school band’s trademark entrance onto the field was “Dixie Entry” arranged by Tommy King Goff. The crowd went wild when they heard it.
We stopped playing it during my freshman (or sophmore year), either ‘68 or ‘69. It just hasn’t been the same since.
“God Bless America and let the band play ‘Dixie’.”
Amen!
Ken Burns - The Civil War film series had some of the most beautiful but yet haunting music, favorites of the time. I would love to get the soundrack.
My HS band played Dixie until somebody told the Blacks they should be offended.
Yep, beautiful song. Though written in my life time, it was in the style popular with the Scots Irish that filled the ranks of both blue and gray.
I have a cassette tape of the BURNS soundtrack, so I’m sure it must be available in other formats. Check with AMAZON.com .
My main disappointment with the series is that although well rendered, only a relative few songs were used repeatedly, and scads of wonderful music of the period as left out.
There was more music written in America during the CW than at any other time in our history, a good deal of it essentially forgotten today.
I collect the stuff and perform it on period gut strung banjo and “Parlor guitar” in the old style. It sounds a lot different than our “modern” country music, I can assure you. Nothing can express the emotions and passions of the time better than the music can.
Some modern recordings are better than others - one of my favorites is David KINCAID’s “Irish Brigade” - expertly done in period authentic style. He wrote a haunting ballad about “Captain Taggart is Coming Home Tonight” before he got into reenacting, only to find out later that there actually was a Cpt. Taggart, and he was killed in action. Kinda gives ya the chills!
If you want to hear period Minstrel banjo the way it was back then, look up Bob FLESHER.
Some of his stuff ain’t necessarily PC but he is a hoot!
Speaking of “PC”; not many of the old Minstrel or CW songs retain their original lyrics; you’d get lynched if you got caught singing them today! I don’t think I could get away with even posting them here.
For a really weird sense of a future foretold coming to fruition (sort of) in our time, look up the original lyrics to “Old Zip Coon” some time.
Better not do it in a public area, though! {8^{D~
“Dixie” was Abraham Lincoln’s favorite, and he had the Union Army Band play it during the Grand Review after the War was pretty much over.
When our Fife & Drum Corp (Third Maine)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfnWAx8dcgY
went down to Richmond VA for the commemoration of it’s fall, we were not supposed to play “Dixie” for “racial sensitivity” issues... so after we played the Battle Hymn coming around the back side of the “Confederate Capitol” (all the Blacks cheered), Drum Major called “Mr Lincoln’s Favorite Tune” and we busted out with “Dixie”, fifes shrieking and drums thundering up and down the street, as we rounded the corner and marched in front of the Capitol steps, halting on the last note. The White folks all went nutz!
No one dared to give us any crap about it, either!
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