When the Band Played Dixie

Canada Free Press ^ | September 17, 2009 | Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.

[George Varnum]

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!

http://www.drhorsehair.com/

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!