MarysLibrary

My Old Kentucky Home

As Wilhelm pointed out in his comment to yesterday's post, "My Old Kentucky Home" is always sung at Churchill Downs on the day of the Kentucky Derby.

Here are the sweetly sad words of the 1986 revision that were sung yesterday in Louisville at post time of the 134th Run for the Roses.

The sun shines bright in My Old Kentucky Home,
'Tis summer, the people are gay;
The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom
While the birds make music all the day.

The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright;
By 'n' by hard times comes a knocking at the door,
Then My Old Kentucky Home, good night!

Chorus
Weep no more my lady
Oh weep no more today;
We will sing one song
For My Old Kentucky Home
For My Old Kentucky Home, far away

Stephen Foster published "My Old Kentucky Home" in 1853. Offensive as some of the old lyrics are, they tell a heart-rending story that needs to be told. Hardship has come to the Kentucky plantation where the singer used to live. He has been separated from his family and all the people he knew in Kentucky. He has been "sold down the river."

Now he works in the cane fields of the deep south. And he cannot expect to live long in that torrid climate, forced to do that grueling job, nor can he expect any compassion from the men driving him. He is being worked to death. And so he sings of happier days back in Kentucky.

In this context, the song is no longer sad; it's tragic. Here are the original lyrics:

The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
'Tis summer, the darkies are gay;
The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.

The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright;
By 'n' by Hard Times comes a-knocking at the door,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

Chorus
Weep no more my lady
Oh! weep no more today!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home,
For the Old Kentucky Home far away.

They hunt no more for the possum and the coon,
On meadow, the hill and the shore,
They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
On the bench by the old cabin door.

The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart,
With sorrow, where all was delight,
The time has come when the darkies have to part,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

Chorus

The head must bow and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darky may go;
A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
In the field where the sugar-canes grow;

A few more days for to tote the weary load,
No matter, 'twill never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

Chorus

Here's the link Wilhelm posted yesterday to a video of Paul Robeson singing the old version of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yJaz74q05M&feature=related

The Gala Opening of the Fox Theater

Last night Wilhelm and I went with Phil and Chaplain Sue to the gala opening of Spokane's renovated Fox Theater.

The Fox originally opened in 1931 as a movie theater in the high Deco mode, and it has been restored as the home of the Spokane Symphony to the tune of about $31 million. It was worth every penny.

Last night's performance featured mezzo Frederica von Stade, whom it was a treat to hear in person. She commented on the outstanding acoustics and the high-tech 21st century features of the house. Those beautiful walls have behind them the technology to broadcast theater performances - and the rehearsals - around the world.

 

If you click on the photos, which come from KREM, they will enlarge.

 

Tearing Down the Wall of Sound

The trail that leads to Phil Spector is long and winding. My recent reading history is this: I bought a book a while back because I loved the title - Wilfred Sheed's The House that George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty. It was, of course, about the great American songbook, the songs that were popular from the turn of the last century to the rise of Rock.

From there I went on to Ken Emerson's Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era (try saying that three times fast.)

I was about to look for a book about Berry Gordy when I spotted this biography of Phil Spector in the library and since he had been mentioned often and intriguingly in Always Magic I borrowed it and found myself mesmerized by this truly awful man as portrayed by Nick Brown in Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector.

This biography capitalizes on the fact that the author, Nick Brown, was granted an interview with Spector shortly before a dead woman was found in his house and he was arrested for murder. That is the least interesting part of the story.

All three books are terrific. And if you are a fan of Ronnie, Darlene Love, the Righteous Brothers, or even of John Lennon, George Harrison, or Ike and Tina Turner, you will find Tearing Down the Wall of Sound most informative. As I said, it's mesmerizing.

In Today's Mail

I came home from A Grand Yarn this afternoon to find that the book and music fairy had delivered a couple of pacakages while I was gone.

One was the new book by Patrick Anderson, The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction. The reviews say that Anderson believes genre fiction is the best fiction being written in the US today. I call it crossover fiction: great novels masquerading as murder mysteries.

I'm looking forward eagerly to reading this analysis. Anderson starts with a short history of the genre then reviews some of the most popular writers of mysteries. These aren't the folks he's talking about when he talks about great literature being found in the mystery section of the bookstore.

He is talking about Thomas Harris, George Pelecanos, Michael Connelly, and my favorite, Denis Lehane, to each of whom he dedicates an entire chapter. He also devotes a chapter to "Tom Clancy's Literary Offenses," which should make for amusing reading.

The other package was my new Rosemary Clooney CD. After watching the movie, "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont," which ends with RC singing "For All We Know," I've been searching for the song on iTunes but to no avail.

Not having found it and being a great fan of Rosemary Clooney and owning only one single CD of her work, I decided I was entitled to buy a whole album, so I did. It's called "For the Duration," and includes, in addition to the target song, "Every Time We Say Goodbye," "I'll Be Seeing You," "September Song," and "These Foolish Things." We have a treat in store.

Thanksgiving Day 2006

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the United States.  Observance of this special day of giving thanks to God was begun in America by the English Puritans who settled in Massachusetts.  The observance is akin to the traditional English autumn festival of Harvest Home.  Thanksgiving Day was primarily a New England holiday in the United States up until the American Civil War.  Since President Lincoln's proclamation of a National Day of Thanksgiving in November 1863, Thanksgiving has become a national holiday in the United States.

Although Thanksgiving Day is not part of the traditional Christian church calendar, Thanksgiving Day is often celebrated in churches in the United States as a national day.  The hymns usually associated with Thanksgiving services are among my favorites.  In Lutheran churches, one of these is Martin Rinkart's Now Thank We All Our God (Nun Danket Alle Gott).  Like many other German hymns, Now Thank We All Our God found its way into English language hymnody thanks to the work of the remarkable 19th century Englishwoman Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878).  Catherine Winkworth was tutored by the Reverend William Gaskell, who taught her German.  She became acquainted with the novelists Charlotte Brönte and Mrs. Elizabeth Claghorn Gaskell, the wife of her tutor. She produced several volumes of translations of German hymns into English.  These include Lyra Germanica (two volumes, 1855 and 1858) and Christian Singers of Germany (1869).  Along with her music editors, Dr Sterndale Bennett and Otto Goldschmidt (the husband of Swedish singer Jenny Lind), she produced the Chorale Book for England (1863).  The Chorale Book for England was not widely adopted in English churches, but was extremely influential in American Lutheran churches.  By the late 1800s, many Lutheran churches in the eastern United States were converting from use of the German language to English.  Nonetheless, these churches wished to continue using their familiar German hymns.  The Chorale Book for England proved to be a bountiful source of material for these churches in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Catherine Winkworth's translation of Martin Rinkart's Now Thank We All Our God (Nun Danket Alle Gott), was set out in her Christian Singers of Germany. This book, despite its title, is a history of the writers and composers of German hymns.  Rinkart was a pastor in Eilenberg, Saxony, whose ministry spanned the entire period of the Thirty Years' War. Along with the rest of Germany, Rinkart's town suffered from invasion, plague, and famine. Rinkart himself performed thousands of funerals, while ministering ceaselessly to the sick and starving. Through all of this he maintained a steadfast faith and wrote Nun Danket Alle Gott near the end of the Thirty Years' War. This hymn is a excellent example of Catherine Winkworth's ability to render the German text into fine English poetry while preserving the meter and essential meaning of the original German.

posted by Wilhelm