War Between The States Music

Robert E. Lee once remarked that without music, there would have been no army. Certainly, music was a large part of life during the War Between the States, both in the camps and at home. Not only was it a major source of entertainment, it was also a way to give voice to feelings that words alone often could not express.
In his excellent volume on the Lower Peninsula campaign of 1862, To the Gates of Richmond, historian Stephen Sears cites an incident that occurred during the Battle of Williamsburg:

[Federal] Corps commander [Samuel] Heintzelman joined the desperate struggle to close the broken ranks. He hit on the novel idea of rallying them with music. Finding several regimental bands standing by bewildered as the battle closed in, Heintzelman ordered them to take up their instruments. "Play! Play! It's all you're good for," he shouted. "Play, damn it! Play some marching tune! Play 'Yankee Doodle,' or any doodle you can think of, only play something!" Before long, over the roar of the guns, came the incongruous sound of "Yankee Doodle" and then "Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue." One of [General Joseph] Hooker's men thought the music was worth a thousand men. "It saved the battle," he wrote.

Survivors of General George Pickett's disastrous charge at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 3, 1863) remembered in later years that Confederate regimental bands stationed in the trees played stirring martial airs as they started off across the mile-long field that separated them from George Meade's Army of the Potomac. Those same bands greeted them with "Nearer, My God, To Thee" as they streamed back to the safety of their own lines after being repulsed at the stone wall.

"Music in Camp" illustrates the importance of music to both armies by recounting an incident that took place along the banks of the Rappahannock River several weeks after the Battle of Chancellorsville.

• Songs of the Union
• Songs of the Confederacy
• Popular Songs of the Day

Fisk Jubilee Singers

 

The Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1882

 

The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditional spirituals, but included some Stephen Foster songs. The original group toured along the Underground Railroad path in the United States, as well as performing in England and Europe. Later nineteenth-century groups also toured in Europe.

In 2002 the Library of Congress honored their 1909 recording of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" by adding it in the United States National Recording Registry. In 2008 they were awarded a National Medal of Arts.

History:

The Fisk Jubilee Singers, circa 1870's

 

The Singers were organized as a fundraising effort for Fisk University. The historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, was founded by the American Missionary Association and local supporters after the end of the American Civil War to educate freedmen and other young African Americans. The five-year-old university was facing serious financial difficulty. To avert bankruptcy and closure, Fisk's treasurer and music director, George L. White, a white Northern missionary, gathered a nine-member student chorus to go on tour to earn money for the university. On October 6, 1871, the group of students, consisting of two quartets and a pianist, started their U.S. tour under White's direction. They first performed in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over the next 18 months, the group toured through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

	"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" Menu 0:00 "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" performed by the Fisk Jubilee Singers
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After a concert in Cincinnati, the group donated their small profit, which amounted to less than fifty dollars, to the relief to the victims of the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871. As soprano Maggie Porter recalled, "We had thirty dollars and sent every penny to Chicago and didn’t have anything for ourselves." The mayor of Chillicothe, Ohio, expressed "thanks to these young colored people for their liberality in giving the proceeds of last evening’s concert to our relief fund for the Chicago sufferers." The group traveled on to Columbus, where lack of funding, poor hotel conditions, and overall mistreatment from the press and audiences left them feeling tired and discouraged.

The group and their pastor, Henry Bennett, prayed about whether to continue with the tour. White went off to pray as well; he believed that they needed a name to capture audience attention. The next morning, he met with the singers and said "Children, it shall be Jubilee Singers in memory of the Jewish year of Jubilee."

This was a reference to Jubilee described in the book of Leviticus in the Bible. Each fiftieth Pentecost was followed by a "year of jubilee" in which all slaves would be set free. Since most of the students at Fisk University and their families were newly freed slaves, the name "Jubilee Singers" seemed fitting.

Jubilee Hall at Fisk University

 

The Jubilee Singers' performances were a departure from the familiar "black minstrel" genre of white musicians' performing in blackface. One early review of the group's performance was headlined "Negro Minstrelsy in Church--Novel Religious Exercise," while further reviews highlighted the fact that this group of Negro minstrels were, oddly enough, "genuine negroes." "Those who have only heard the burnt cork caricatures of negro minstrelsy have not the slightest conception of what it really is," Doug Seroff quotes one review of a concert by the group as saying. This was not a uniquely American response to the group's performance, but was typical in audience receptions in Europe as well: "From the first the Jubilee music was more or less of a puzzle to the critics; and even among those who sympathised with their mission there was no little difference of opinion as to the artistic merit of their entertainments. Some could not understand the reason for enjoying so thoroughly as almost everyone did these simple unpretending songs."


As the tour continued, audiences came to appreciate the singers' voices, and the group began to be praised. The Jubilee Singers are credited with the early popularization of the Negro spiritual tradition among white and northern audiences in the late 19th century; many were previously unaware of its existence. After the rough start, the first United States tours eventually earned $40,000 for Fisk University.

In early 1872 the group performed at the World's Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival in Boston, and they were invited to perform for President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House in March of that year.

They gave a separate performance in Washington, D.C., for Vice President Schuyler Colfax and members of the U.S. Congress. They traveled next to New York, where they performed before enthusiastic audiences at preacher Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and at Steinway Hall in Manhattan. They garnered national attention and generous donations. Staying in the New York area for six weeks, by the time they returned to Nashville, they had raised the full $20,000 White had promised the university.

In a tour of Great Britain and Europe in 1873, the group, by then with 11 members, performed "Steal Away to Jesus" and "Go Down, Moses" for Queen Victoria in April. Queen Victoria was so impressed by the Singers that she commented that with such beautiful voices, they had to be from the Music City of the United States. Hence, the moniker for Nashville, Tennessee - Music City USA - was born. They returned the following year, they sailed to Europe again, touring from May 1875 to July 1878. This tour raised an estimated $150,000 for the university, funds used to construct Fisk’s first permanent building. Named Jubilee Hall, the building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975 and still stands.

The original Jubilee Singers disbanded in 1878 because of their grueling touring schedule. As Ella Sheppard, one of the original Jubilee Singers recalled, "our strength was failing under the ill treatment at hotels, on railroads, poorly attended concerts, and ridicule." Porter also said, "There were many times, when we didn’t have place to sleep or anything to eat. Mr. White went out and brought us some sandwiches and tried to find some place to put us up." Other times while the singers would wait in the railway station, White "and some other man of the troupe waded through sleet or snow or rain from hotel to hotel seeking shelter for us".

A new Jubilee Singers choir was formed in 1879 under the direction of George White and singer Frederick J. Loudin. This troupe, formed by White, consisted of Jennie Jackson, Maggie Porter, Georgia Gordon, Mabel Lewis, Patti Malone, Hinton Alexander, Benjamin W. Thomas, and newcomers R. A. Hall, Mattie Lawrence, and George E. Barrett. A. Cushing was the agent who managed their bookings.

Singers and tours

[note: Parentheses indicate performers who participated only a few months in a particular tour.]

First Tour October 1871 to March 1872

• (Phebe Anderson) - contralto
• Isaac Dickerson - bass
• Greene Evans - bass
• Benjamin Holmes - tenor
• Jennie Jackson - soprano
• Maggie Porter - soprano
• Thomas Rutling - tenor
• Ella Sheppard - soprano, piano, organ, and guitar
• Minnie Tate - contralto
• Eliza Walker - contralto
• (George Wells) - performer

Second Tour May 1872 to May 1874

• Isaac Dickerson - bass
• (Greene Evans) - bass
• Georgia Gordon - soprano
• Benjamin Holmes - tenor
• Jennie Jackson - soprano
• Julia Jackson - contralto
• Mabel Lewis - contralto
• (Josephine Moore) - piano
• (Henry Morgan) - tenor
• Maggie Porter - soprano
• Thomas Rutling - tenor
• Ella Sheppard - soprano, piano, organ, and guitar
• Minnie Tate - contralto
• Edmund Watkins - bass

Third Tour January 1875 to July 1878

• Hinton Alexander- tenor
• (Minnie Butler) - voice and/or instrument unknown
• Maggie Carnes - soprano
• Georgia Gordon - soprano
• (Ella Hildridge) - soprano
• Jennie Jackson - soprano
• Julia Jackson - contralto
• Mabel Lewis - contralto
• Frederick J. Loudin - bass
• (Patti Malone) - mezzo-soprano
• (Gabriel Ousley) - bass
• Maggie Porter - soprano
• America Robinson - contralto
• Thomas Rutling - tenor
• Ella Sheppard - soprano, piano, organ, and guitar
• Benjamin W. Thomas - bass
• (Lucinda Vance) - contralto
• Edmund Watkins - bass

Alumni

Notable people who were members of the Jubilee Singers include:

• Roland Hayes, lyric tenor who was the first African-American male concert artist to receive wide international acclaim
• Frederick J. Loudin, sang bass in the choir, the caliber of his singing was often compared to that of Roland Hayes and Paul Robeson, two of the greatest male vocalists born and bred on American soil. He also directed the "Original Fisk Jubilee Singers," before and after the group disbanded in 1878, touring the globe and receiving international acclaim, in the capacity of singer, director and manager of the group for nearly 30 years.
• Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, soprano whose repertoire included grand opera, light opera, and popular music
• Patti J. Malone, mezzo-soprano
• Mandisa Lynn Hundley, American gospel singer professionally known as Mandisa; a Grammy and Dove Award-nominated vocalist, she was the ninth-place finalist in the fifth season (2006) of American Idol.

Jubilee Day

Fisk University commemorates the anniversary of the Singers' first tour by celebrating Jubilee Day on October 6 each year.

Recent accomplishments:

The Fisk Jubilee Singers' performance at the Dixie Carter Performing Arts and Academic Enrichment Center in Huntingdon, Tennessee in 2008.

 

The Jubilee Singers continue to perform as a touring ensemble of Fisk University students. As of 2000, the group had 14 members who sang without instrumental accompaniment and with their director offstage.

They also have appeared with popular performers including Danny Glover, Hank Williams Jr., Faith Hill, and Shania Twain.

Fisk Jubilee Singers 12 13 Ensemble

Representation in arts and culture:

On 15 May 2010 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a play The Jubilee Singers about the Fisk Jubilee Singers' European Tour of 1873 by Adrian Mitchell. (The poet, playwright and human rights campaigner died in 2008.) It portrayed the relationship between the singers and a Welsh journalist who admired them and later acted as their publicist.

Legacy and honors:

• 1996, the National Arts Club honored the Singers with a Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award.
• 2000, the Singers were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
• 2006, the group was honored on the Music City Walk of Fame.
• 2004, the song "Poor Man Lazarus" on the Singers' 2003 recording In Bright Mansions was honored with a Dove Award.
• In Bright Mansions also was nominated for a Grammy Award that year in the Best Recording Package category.
• 2008, the group was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
• 2009, Fisk Jubilee Singers, along with Jonny Lang, released the song "I Believe" on the compilation album Oh Happy Day: An All-Star Music Celebration.

External links:

• Fisk Jubilee Singers official website
• Fisk Jubilee Singers cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
• Fisk Jubilee Singers Recordings on Folkways Records
• Play "The Jubilee Singers", by Adrian Mitchell (Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 15 May 2010).
• Jubilee Songs: as sung by the Jubilee Singers, of Fisk University, New York: Biglow & Main, 1872
• Source: Wikipedia.com
•  

Dan Emmett

Photograph of Dan Emmett in his later years, taken from the belongings of Ben and Lew Snowden of Clinton, Knox County, Ohio.

 

Daniel Decatur "Dan" Emmett (October 29, 1815 – June 28, 1904) was an American songwriter, entertainer, and founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition.

Biography:

Of Irish ancestry, Dan Emmett was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, then a frontier region. Growing up with little formal education, he learned popular tunes from his musical mother, and taught himself to play the fiddle. At age 13, he became an apprentice printer and enlisted in the United States Army. He became an expert fifer and drummer at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and published his own Fifer’s and Drummer’s Guide in 1862 in cooperation with George G. Bruce. After receiving his discharge from the army on July 8, 1835, he joined a Cincinnati circus. In 1840–1842 he toured with Angevine and other circuses as a black face banjoist and singer.

In association with Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Frank Brower, he organized the Virginia Minstrels, which made their first appearance before a paying audience at the Chatham Theatre in New York City in 1843.

Photograph of Dan Emmett in blackface, probably early 1860's.

 

Although blackface performance, in which white men painted their hands and faces black and impersonated caricatures of black men and women, was already an established performance mode at that time—Thomas D. Rice had created the character of Jim Crow nearly a decade earlier, and blackface had been widely popular ever since—Emmett's group are said to be the first to "black up" an entire band rather than one or two performers. The group's full-length blackface performance is generally considered to have been the first true minstrel show: previous blackface acts were usually either an entr'acte for a play or one of many acts in a comic variety show.

Dan Emmett is traditionally credited with writing the famous song "Dixie". The story that he related about its composition varied each time he told it, but the main points were that he composed the song in New York City while a member of Bryant's Minstrels. The song was first performed by Emmett and the Bryants at Mechanics' Hall in New York City on April 4, 1859. The song became a runaway hit, especially in the South, and the piece for which Emmett was most well known. Emmett himself reportedly told a fellow minstrel that "If I had known to what use they [Southerners] were going to put my song, I will be damned if I'd have written it." After the South began using his song as a rally, Emmett wrote the fife and drum manual for the Union Army. Emmett's song was a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln, who said after the war ended in 1865: "I have always thought that 'Dixie' was one of the best tunes I ever heard. I had heard our adversaries had attempted to appropriate it. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured it."

Another writer named William Shakespeare Hays (1837–1907) (pen name: Will S. Hays), claimed to be its true author. Members of the Snowden Family of Knox County, Ohio, have also been named as writers of the song.

Death and posthumous recognition:

After a tour that was notably successful in the south Emmett retired to his hometown of Mount Vernon in 1888  where he died on June 28, 1904, aged 88 years. From the time of 1893 to the time of his death, he was aided by a weekly allowance from the Actors Fund of America. Emmett was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. A biographical film of Daniel Decatur Emmett was produced in 1943, entitled Dixie. Starring Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, it is a musical directed by A. Edward Sutherland.
Numerous schools, businesses, and other institutions in Mount Vernon, Ohio, are named after Emmett. The official memorial to him is a large boulder with a placard attached located in front of the Knox County Historical Museum.

During Emmett’s lifetime, Emmett published at least 30 songs between 1843 and 1865, most of which are banjo tunes or walk-arounds. During 1859 and 1869, he composed another 25 tunes that are still in manuscript at the Ohio Historical Society, in Columbus.

External Links:

• Dan Emmett at the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Dan Emmett at the Internet Movie Database
• Free scores by Dan Emmett in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores at the Mutopia Project
• Free scores by Dan Emmett at the International Music Score Library Project
• Minstrel show

Adamsville, TN

Buford Pusser home

Adamsville is a town in Hardin and McNairy counties, Tennessee. The population was 2,207 at the 2010 census. Adamsville is named after George D. Adams, who operated an inn and stagecoach stop in the 1840's. Adamsville's nickname is the "Biggest Little Town in Tennessee" and was the home of Sheriff Buford Pusser.

History:

The area in and around Adamsville was first surveyed by Davy Crockett. Just after 1818, George C. Adams and his family were the first settlers of European ancestry to locate to the area. A trading post would be opened, just north of where the Adamsville Cemetery is today. The trading post served the local Native communities and Anglo settlers. In 1838 the Bell's detachment of the Trail of Tears traveled through Adamsville. Settlers from North Carolina and Maury County, Tennessee migrated to the area and the settlement developed an agricultural economy. When the Battle of Shiloh was fought in 1862, Union Army soldiers were camped in Adamsville.

Adamsville was incorporated in 1870.  The town struggled to grow until roads were improved in the early 20th century. Agriculture remained the main economic developer until the textile industry came into the area with Myrna Mills factory opening, and then other factories following.

Economy:

Adamsville has an 85 acre industrial park and four miles east of the town proper is the Tennessee Technology Center. Masco's southern unit for their bath accessories and products is located in Adamsville. Riley Industries, a parts supplier for the automotive industry and related industrial fabricators, has its corporate headquarters in the town. Jones Exhaust Systems, engineering consultants Aqua Dynamics Group, Langley Wire Cloth Products, and Better Source Supply Company all have major locations in the town, as well. The Adamsville Partnership organization was formed by local businesses, property owners, professionals and related parties to promote the community.

Arts and Culture:

A slugburger with onion rings.

 

Adamsville's Fat Cat Grill serves "slugburgers", a delicacy found in west Tennessee, northeast Mississippi and northwest Alabama. The Fat Cat slugburger consists of a hamburger patty made of beef and soy grits which is then deep fried and served on a bun with condiments. Another local delicacy is the baked cabbage at the Saw Meal Restaurant and Steakhouse.

Annual Events:

Adamsville holds a large number of annual events. Every Memorial Day weekend the four day Buford Pusser Festival is held at the Buford Pusser Memorial Park. The local preliminary for Miss Tennessee, the Miss Walking Tall Pageant is held at the Marty community center. A number of other cultural events such as the HeeHaw Show, the Adamsville Music Fest, the Miss Adamsville Music Fest Pageant, the Buford Pusser Horse Show, a fall festival and two Christmas events also take place.

Points of Interest:

The Buford Pusser Home and Museum is located in Adamsville in the former home of the county sheriff. Pusser is also buried in the Adamsville Cemetery.  Gibb's Gas & Oil Collectibles is an appointment only museum of old gas pumps, gas and oil signs, oil cans, and other service station memorabilia.

Adamsville's public library is the Irving Meek Jr. Memorial Library.   The local War Memorial Park is located off of Highway 64 and Old Stage. It commemorates veterans and those who died from Adamsville in World War I and II, the Korean War and Vietnam War.  The Old Home Motel was built in 1960 by Joe and Juanita Richardson. Buford Pusser lived at the hotel for a time, and Elvis Presley stayed the night there.

Parks and Recreation:

Established in 1998, the Adamsville Recreation & Parks Department maintains flag and American football leagues, a cheerleading team, basketball and soccer teams. The town also offers other sports for youth and adults including softball and baseball. Every year the department plans a 5K run to coincide with the annual Buford Pusser Memorial Festival. The city park, also named after Buford Pusser, sits on land that was founded as a sandlot and horse barn by Pusser and the Adamsville Jaycees in 1973. The city park formed out of a fundraiser which featured musicians George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and continued funding and grants go towards improving the park. The city park has a lighted basketball court and tennis courts, a playground, three ball fields, an open air pavilion, grills and picnic tables, and a walking track.  Shiloh Golf Course is an 18-hole golf course. The golf course is on historical land: the number two and number four greens lie along the road where General Lew Wallace marched his three brigades to the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1852.

The department also maintains a senior center which distributes Meals on Wheels and related services. The Marty community center is also maintained by the Recreation & Parks department for public use and also has live entertainment, including the monthly Adamsville Bluegrass Jamboree.

Government:

Adamsville's government consists of a City Commission: a mayor and four commissioners. Every two years elections are held on the first Saturday of October, and the mayor and commissioners serve four year staggered terms. The town also has a city administrator, who serves in a full-time paid position overseeing general day to day needs of the city business.

Education:

The town is served by two public schools: Adamsville Elementary School and Adamsville Jr/Sr High School. The elementary school is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and serves pre-kindergarten to 6th graders. The high school provides education to 7-12th graders in the county. The school has been listed as one of U.S. News & World Report's best high schools in America. The school mascot is the cardinal.

Notable people:

McNairy County sheriff Buford Pusser lived in Adamsville.  The 44th Governor of Tennessee, Ray Blanton, lived in Adamsville and is buried in Shiloh National Military Park.  Miss Tennessee USA 2011 and Miss Tennessee Teen USA 2006, Ashley Durham, is from Adamsville.  Rock n' roll disc jockey Dewey Phillips was born in Adamsville and is buried in nearby Crump Cemetery.

External Links:

• Adamsville Website
• Ashley Durham returns to Adamsville
• "Buford Pusser, the Man, his Career, and Tragedies"
• Adamsville Schools
• Our City Leaders
• History of Adamsville

• Welcome to the Town of Adamsville

    

Source: Internet

Michie, TN

Michie is a town in McNairy County, Tennessee. The population was 647 at the 2000 census and 591 at the 2010 census.

Newspaper:

Michie's newspaper is the McNairy County News, which has the largest following of any weekly newspaper on facebook in the state of Tennessee. They are located at 252 Mulberry Ave. in Selmer and Independent Appeal. It was founded in 1902. It is located at 111 N. 2nd St. in Selmer.

Source: Internet

Bethel Springs, TN

Bethel Springs City Hall and Fire Department in November 2013.

Bethel Springs is a town in McNairy County, Tennessee. The population was 718 at the 2010 census.

Notable people:

• Albert Brewer, 47th governor of Alabama

Source: Internet

Milledgville, TN

Milledgeville is a town in Chester, Hardin, and McNairy counties, Tennessee. The population was 265 at the 2010 census.

Source: Internet