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Stephen Foster & Co.: Lyrics of America’s First Great Popular Songs

Edited by Ken Emerson

“Pop-song scholar Emerson presents 81 such songs in their earliest incarnations in this neat collection, sorting them in categories that, used in their heyday, still make sense: Plantation Melodies, Parlor Songs, Drinking and Temperance Songs, Songs of Protest and Poverty, War Songs, and Comic Songs. . . . Essential Americana.”—Booklist

Overview
Table of Contents
Contributors

Overview

Stephen Foster is the trunk of the tree of American song. His blackface minstrel songs, including “Oh! Susanna,” “Old Folks at Home” (“Way down upon the Swanee River…”), and “My Old Kentucky Home,” and his parlor ballads, such as “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” and “Beautiful Dreamer,” have inspired composers, songwriters, and performers from Charles Ives and George Gershwin to Ray Charles and James Taylor. Foster devoted as much care and craft to his lyrics as he did to his timeless melodies.

In this comprehensive new selection, acclaimed music historian Ken Emerson introduces and annotates the lyrics to more than thirty of Foster’s best and best-known songs. These masterpieces by America’s first full-time professional songwriter, forebear of Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, Carole King, and Bob Dylan, have been so deeply absorbed into our culture that they are often assumed to be folk music. Alongside are fifty other 19th-century American popular songs that influenced Foster or that he in turn influenced, from “Home! Sweet Home!” in the 1820s to “Western Home” (the original “Home on the Range”) in the 1870s.

Ken Emerson is the author of Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture and Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era.

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Table of Contents

Introduction by Ken Emerson

PLANTATION MELODIES

Stephen C. Foster
Lou’siana Belle
Uncle Ned
Susanna
Away Down Souf
Nelly Was a Lady
Nelly Bly
“Gwine to Run All Night,” or De Camptown Races
Angelina Baker
Ring, Ring de Banjo!
Old Folks at Home
Massa’s in de Cold Ground
My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!
The Glendy Burk
Old Black Joe
Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice
Jim Crow
George Washington Dixon (attribution disputed)
Zip Coon
My Long Tail Blue
Daniel Decatur Emmett
Old Dan Tucker
I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land
“J. K.”
The Yellow Rose of Texas
Henry Clay Work
Kingdom Coming
James A. Bland
Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
O, Dem Golden Slippers!
In the Evening by the Moonlight

PARLOR BALLADS

Stephen C. Foster
Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway!
I Would Not Die in Spring Time
Old Dog Tray
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
Gentle Annie
Linger in Blissful Repose
Beautiful Dreamer
Kiss Me Dear Mother Ere I Die
John Howard Payne
Home! Sweet Home!
George Pope Morris
Woodman! Spare That Tree!
Henry D. L. Webster
Lorena
W. W. Fosdick
Aura Lee
Will S. Hays
I’ll Remember You, Love, in My Prayers
Brewster Higley
Western Home
Henry Clay Work
Grandfather’s Clock

DRINKING AND TEMPERANCE SONGS

Stephen C. Foster
Willie We Have Missed You
Comrades Fill No Glass for Me
The Wife
Jesse Hutchinson Jr.
King Alcohol
Henry Clay Work
“Come Home, Father!” 78
Joseph Eastburn Winner
The Little Brown Jug
Edward Harrigan
I’ll Never Get Drunk Any More

SONGS OF PROTEST AND POVERTY

Stephen C. Foster
Hard Times Come Again No More
The Little Ballad Girl
Jesse Hutchinson Jr.
Get Off the Track!
Eight Dollars a Day
Charles P. Shiras
The Popular Creed
Frances D. Gage
A Hundred Years Hence
Solon Robinson
The Dying Words of Little Katy, or Will He Come
Benjamin Hanby
Darling Nelly Gray
Edward Harrigan
McNally’s Row of Flats
No Wealth Without Labor

WAR SONGS

Stephen C. Foster
That’s What’s the Matter
Was My Brother in the Battle?
Samuel Woodworth
New-Orleans (The Hunters of Kentucky)
John Hill Hewitt
The Minstrel’s Return from the War
Henry S. Washburn
The Vacant Chair
George F. Root
Just Before the Battle, Mother
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! (The Prisoner’s Hope)
Marie Ravenal de la Coste
Somebody’s Darling
Walter Kittredge
Tenting on the Old Camp Ground
Henry Clay Work
Marching Through Georgia
Edward Harrigan
The Regular Army O!

COMIC SONGS

George Cooper, lyrics; Stephen C. Foster, music
My Wife Is a Most Knowing Woman
If You’ve Only Got a Moustache
Mr. & Mrs. Brown
William Stark
The Modern Belle
H. S. Thompson
Down by the River Lived a Maiden
Percy Montrose
Oh My Darling Clementine
Septimus Winner
Der Deitcher’s Dog
“Blasee”
The Girl That Keeps the Peanut Stand
Edward Harrigan
Sweet Mary Ann
Down in Gossip Row
Cash! Cash! Cash!
Billy Mortimer
Fifty Cents
Joseph Flynn
Down Went McGinty
Joe Hart
Globe Trotting Nellie Bly
Contributors

James A. Bland “Blasee”
George Cooper
George Washington Dixon
Daniel Decatur Emmett
W. W. Fosdick
Stephen C. Foster
Joseph Flynn
Frances D. Gage
Benjamin Hanby
Edward Harrigan
Joe Hart
Will S. Hays
John Hill Hewitt
Brewster Higley
Jesse Hutchinson Jr. “J. K.”
Walter Kittredge
Percy Montrose
George Pope Morris
Billy Mortimer
John Howard Payne
Marie Ravenal de la Coste
Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice
Solon Robinson
George F. Root
Charles P. Shiras
William Stark
H. S. Thompson
Henry S. Washburn
Henry D. L. Webster
Joseph Eastburn Winner
Septimus Winner
Samuel Woodworth
Henry Clay Work

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ISBN: 978-1-59853-070-4 204 pages

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