Robin - It seems that I fluffed up my attempt to put my E-dress up on previous posting via HTML, so here it is in dumbkoff format for your copy & pasting at leisure:

UncleJaque@blackpowder.net

One of your previous posts indicates that you have a particular interest in "Civil War" Music; if so this we have in common, as I've always been a CW History and Music "Buff", and currently serve as a Fifer in the Field Music, 3rd regiment Maine volunteer Infantry, a nonprofit educational reenacting Community.

http://www.powerlink.net/mcgill/

My "specialty", if we might call it that, is in bringing the music of the period into our educational "Living History" programs as it communicates the human drama and pathos of the period and the events which defined it far better than the names and dates in traditional History texts ever can. We try to use not only authentic period or replica instruments in these presentations, but study and try to emulate the period vocal and instrumental techniques as well. If this sort of thing interests you and you might like to share some tunes, notes etc. do keep in touch.

I think you have a lot to work with here already so I won't confuse you furthur, but will keep an eye out for interesting stuff from the period you mention. I get the impression that there was a bunch of sacred / liturgical music composed during the late 18th Century, but original composition seems to have fallen off considerably until around the mid 1830s, as publications between those times seem to contain pretty much the same material. In the mid-1840s we see some original material both sacred and secular, with an apparent obsession in topical / lyric content with death and dying, and hopes of the afterlife. It is not until the 1850s I notice more topical diversity with romantic, political (the Hutchinson Family for example), protest and patriotic music leading up to the ACW when more music was written in America than at any other time in our history before or since. Of course a lot of the "Folk" music, including "drinking songs" and Sea Chanteys may have come about somewhat spontaniously somewhere in there, but many were lost or not written down / published for years after their conception, and the origin of many of them remains a mystery. I would speculate that most of the songs heard during said "haunting" were most likely "oldies" from a much earlier period, perhaps even traditional favorites from the "Old Country" which had been around for Centuries even then. Many of the ancient English ballads, or at least recognizable remnants or developments of them, were still being recorded in Appalachia and the Ozarks well into the 20th Century.

I hope that your Friend's production works out well!

Have fun!