One of the ladies in the Stephen Foster Music Club here in town gave me a copy of a review of a new CD - she knows about my interest in folk music and Mudcat activity. If anyone is interested, PM me, and I think I can scan the newspaper article.

A few lines from the article:

His classic songs grew out of one of the greatest periods of racial and social upheaval in this nation's history and are so embedded in America's musical fabric they can seem more the product of folk tradition than the pen of one man.

...Stepehn Foster, widely considered the first quintessentially American songwriter, whose music Dylan, amony others, has cited as a profound influence on his own.

..."Beautiful Dreamer - The Songs of Stephen Foster"...spans such widely known compositions as "Oh! Susanna," "Camptown Races" and "Hard Times Come Again No More," along with less frequently performed tunes, including "Don't Bet Money on the Shanghai,""No One to Love" and "Nelly Was a Lady."

"He [Foster] had an epiphany in the middle of his career when he realized these minstrel songs he'd been writing had been tasteless,"...

Alison Krauss, Mavis Staples, Roger McGuinn, Michelle Shocked and the Mavericks' Raul Malo are among the singers on an album that aims to raise Foster's profile among pop, country, folk and rock listeners.