Southern songs of the Civil-War era

Subject: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 06:21 PM

I just found this cool web site called Documenting the American South, from the Academic Affairs Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (It's not the same as the Southern Folklife Collection, UNC-CH, which has been mentioned elsewhere in Mudcat.) By searching their site, I have identified 6 songbooks in their collection, the entire text of which seems to be downloadable. Warning: the text pages take a long time to download. I haven't looked at all of them myself yet.

A Collection of Sabbath School Hymns. Compiled by a Sabbath School Teacher, for the Benefit of the Children in the Confederate States, No Author, 1863.

Hymns for the Camp, No Author, 1862.

Songs of Love and Liberty. Compiled by a North Carolina Lady, No Author, 1864.

The Religion of the American Negro Slave: His Attitude Toward Life and Death. From The Journal of Negro History, G. R. Wilson, 1923.

The Southern Zion's Songster; Hymns Designed for Sabbath Schools, Prayer, and Social Meetings, and the Camps. Compiled by the Editor of the North Carolina Christian Advocate, No Author, 1864.

War Songs of the South, William G. Shepperson, 1862.

If you are considering copying any of these songs into a Mudcat thread (which I think is a good idea), please hold off until we develop a strategy. I will be consulting with Joe Offer about this. I think there may be several people interested in doing this, and I wouldn't want us to duplicate one another's work. I've already worked a bit on "Songs of Love and Liberty."

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Burke
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 06:29 PM

Are any of these with music, or are they words only?

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 06:40 PM

The ones I have looked at are words only.

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 07:17 PM

Jim: Give me a yodel when you do get it situated. I would be very interested. Kindest reguards, Neil

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From:
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 09:32 PM

Me too, Jim. This is quite a find! Thanks, and just let me know how I can help.

Mary

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Kim C
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 01:06 PM

Me too!!! Me too!!! Oh boy!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 05:06 PM

By the way, my nascent effort is at the publisher but if you'd like to preview it check out this web site. www.geocities.com/the12thus/ Go to song book Kindest reguards, Neil

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 21 Apr 01 - 08:54 AM

Please mail to me, too, when you've got it ready. If I can help you, just ask, okay? This is great!

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 11:22 PM

Tremendous resource here for hymns, spirituals project as well.

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 09:41 AM

As far as the spirituals side of this-- I have been looking around in there for some time. I wanted to finish our index of songbooks first so we could compare versions more easily-- but yes, we will want to dive in there pretty soon.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 09:51 AM

This website, Poetry and Music of the War Between the States, has quite a few songs, both from the North and the South. There are MIDIs for some.

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Hollowfox
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 11:51 AM

just to add to your bibliography, I recommend the book Rebel Songster by Manley Wade Wellman (Heritage Music, 1959).

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Uncle Jaque
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 11:59 AM

Having just perused one of those sites, I'm impressed with the work so far. It would (hopefully will) be nice when & if they get some of the pages scanned and available for viewing / download with the scores, as the LEVY site (in which some of the same songs might be found, by the way).

Many of these titles and lyrics look very familiar to me; There is at least one (Homeward Bound) which I know I have (at least two published arrangements of plus my own for whistle / fife, and another with chords for guitar) from the 1860's, several I'm "pretty sure" appear in the collection, and a whole lot that look really familiar.

Many of the "Old Standbys" that were titled with the name of a Town ("Cambridge") or the Author ("Watts") or sometimes just the chord progression / meter ("7s; CT") are routinely featured in most all of the "Sacred Music" publications from the mid/late 1700's and form the basis for the evolution of more familiar Hymns still common in Christian Worship today.

We just picked up a couple of 19th Century Hymn books (one undated, est. pre-CW) locally which we have yet to go through in detail, and who knows...

Things are pretty hectic right now and I can't be spending a lot of time chasing them down, but if you see one here you really fall in love with and can't find the score anywhere else, drop me a line & I'll see what I can do... eventually. (Susan and WYSIWYG know how long it takes me to "git 'round tuit" sometimes).

There are some really beautiful songs tucked away in the obscurity of some of these old mouldy books, and I have been blessed in pulling a few out and dusting them off. It's great to see others more qualified and knowledgeable than I taking a crack at it as well!

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Amos
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 12:37 PM

What a terrific resource!!! Thanks!

A.

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 04:51 PM

As I said in another thread, I feel I need to withdraw my offer to coordinate any work that is done on these songs.

I still think it would be useful for someone to copy some or all of these songs into various Mudcat threads, with suitable editing, but I don't have time to do it myself or be involved in any way. Sorry. I hope my first message back in April didn't discourage anyone else from taking up the task.

I'm guessing there are a lot of duplicates among the various songbooks mentioned above, and old Mudcat threads, and DigiTrad, so the first order of business would be (in my opinion) checking for duplicates.

As for myself, I intend to keep plugging away at finding songs in old threads and harvesting them for DigiTrad. There seems to be enough work in this area to keep me occupied for a long time.

Subject: RE: Southern songs of the Civil-War era
From: wildlone
Date: 13 Oct 01 - 05:08 PM

For more Info on the ACW Click here
The first few links on the general resources are to music and song sites.
dave