American heros who played music

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Timehiker
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 01:07 AM

Texas legend has it that the tune Crocket played during the seige of the Alamo was "Will You Come to the Bower". There were survivors of that battle, women and slaves, so news of what happened inside was known. Sam Houston had his fifer play the tune at the Battle of San Jacinto.

I believe that the fiddler for the Lewis and Clark expedition was York, Lewis' slave.

Take care
Timehiker

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Charcloth
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 10:03 PM

Thanks Bud I will have to work on "the Route" & have to let my audiance know Crockett wrote it

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 08:35 PM

Thanks Sandy.....Glad to have some backup on the story because it does sound odd. I had heard about the bathroom too and I think she mentioned it in a magazine article, but I looked today and couldn't find it. She also had a rack thing that set above the tub at an angle and I thought several times about taking a plywood prototype that I have and mounting it on a sliding rack above the tub....I mean, what a way to practice!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 08:03 PM

Whoopi Goldberg got her hammered dulcimer at the Folkcraft Instruments shop in Kent, Connecticut (now closed). Rob Brereton, hot modern mountain dulcimer player, managed the shop at the time and sold it to her. He told me, later, that she confessed that she kept it in the bathroom of her house in Kent. Seems reasonable, to me. I keep a variety of books in mine. No sense in wasting time (that's a pun for Catspaw).

Sandy (bringing you all the important news)

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 02:25 PM

The alternate name for "Col. Crockett's March" is "The Route", and it can be found in David Brody's The Fiddler's Fakebook, published by Oak. You can hear it on the Hammons Collection CD, and the enclosed booklet provides the notes. I believe another name for it is "Jenny on the Railroad." A great tune, one of those hypnotic ones like "Muddy Roads."

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Peter T.
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 12:42 PM

For Civil War buffs, I suppose among the most famous musical moments is the playing of "Kathleen Mavourneen" by Almira Hancock at the final farewell evening in California before her husband Winfield Scott Hancock and his bosom friend Lewis Armistead went into their separate armies (only to meet again at Gettysburg where Armistead fell at the high water mark of the Confederacy, and willed his bible to Almira). I have no idea if it is a true story, but it is a classic tearjerker....

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 12:39 PM

Jimmie Davis (I have also seen his name spelled "Jimmy") governor of Louisiana (1944-48 and 1960-64), is a country musician and songwriter. Some songs I have found attributed to him are "You Are My Sunshine," "It Makes No Difference Now," "Nobody's Darlin' But Mine," and "Come Home, Come Home, It's Suppertime." He is apparently still living, at age 100. See these web sites:

http://www.peermusic.com/peerjimmie.html

http://www.bear-family.de/tabel1/backor/internat/d/davis_jimmie/jimmie_davis.htm

http://www.state.la.us/osr/other/mjf99-44.htm

http://www.etrs.net/jdtribut.htm

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 10:28 AM

Bud Savoi,

"whore Monica" is a great pun. I love it. Thanks. I'll use it (and probably take credit for it) ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Charcloth
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 09:48 AM

Maybe I am dfferent but I always concidered singers as musicians I also think dancers are too, look at river dance, if a purcusionist is a musician then so is a dancer I had heard that Squire Boone ( Danniel's brother) Played fiddle And I can't remember his name but one of the men of the Louis & Clark Expedition played the fiddle for them

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST, Banjo Johnny
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 02:30 AM

Nice going, Chanteyranger! == Johnny

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 12:42 AM

Fear not, Banjo Johnny -

1928 Democratic Presidential nominee Al Smith was a singer on the vaudeville circuit before he went into politics.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: winniemih
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 11:28 PM

The story circulating at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop this summer was that after his inaugeration speech, thomas Jefferson stepped down from the podium and played "Over the Waterfall" on his fiddle. Too bad he didn't set a precident for the president!

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Charcloth
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 10:28 PM

Anybody know where I can get the tune Col. Crockets march?

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST, Banjo Johnny
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 09:13 PM

I am surprised to learn Whoopie Goldberg is considered an American hero. == Johnny in OKC

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST,m l mack
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 09:10 PM

Someone asked if Whoopie Goldberd plays piano. Study the musician's pectures on the Carla Bley "Liberation Music Orchestra" albums. The piano player looks EXACTLY like Whoopie. I can't remember the name, but I've always thought it was her.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 08:17 PM

Davy Crockett was a fiddler and composed a tune he called Col. Crockett's March. It is still played under a variety of names.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 08:14 PM

Actually, Bill Clinton USED to play the sax, but then he became heavily involved with his whoremonica.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Kim C
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 05:39 PM

Lucy Liu of Ally McBeal (I really hate that show, btw)plays the accordion. Seriously.

Former TN Governor and one-time Presidential hopeful Lamar Alexander is a splendid piano player.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST, Banjo Johnny
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 12:59 AM

So does everyone think you have to play instruments to be a musician? What about singers? Doesn't singing count? What about writers & composers?? This prejudice towards instrumentalists is the cancer that is destroying our once great nation. == Banjo Johnny

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Charcloth
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 12:49 AM

I think that is fantastic that Whoopi plays hammer dulcimer I know she is a great singer but I am totaly surprised about the hammer dulcimer. Is it true she also plays the piano?

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:25 PM

For awhile, on ads for the Gap, I think, didn't they have non-musical celebrities playing instruments? I remember William H. Macy playing harmonica, but that's about it... Wait, they aren't heroes. Damn.

Spaw (if I may call you that), cool, 'bout Whoopi. For some reason, that's an instrument I have trouble picturing her playing. That and the zurna. Is she any good?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Mbo
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:08 PM

New York Yankee Bernie Williams plays Classical guitar.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:06 PM

Stormin' Norman Schwartskopf (sp?) plays Autoharp.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Abby Sale
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:02 PM

Real heroes? How about

On 9/24/1992/ Gamble Rogers (posthumously) received the Carnegie Medal for heroism.

He drowned 10/10/1991, (age 54) while trying to rescue a Canadian tourist from a heavy surf at Flagler Beach State Park, Florida. The Park was renamed by the Florida Legislature in his honor.

"He left this world holding out his hand."

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:48 PM

Yep....not a joke Lepus....its true.

Spaw

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:29 PM

Seriously? Whoopi Goldberg plays hammered dulcimer?!

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:14 PM

I've heard that Davy Crockett played "The Girl I Left Behind" during the last hours of the seige of the Alamo(though I'm not sure how this fact came to be known).

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 09:41 PM

Whoopi Goldberg plays Hammered Dulcimer.

Spaw

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Charcloth
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 09:12 PM

Ok the tally so far ( I hope more comes in) Bill Clinton--Sax George Bush--guitar Richard Nixon--piano F.D.Rosevelt (&his daughter) --piano Harry Truman--piano Abe Lincoln--harmonica Andy Jackson (& Spouse banjo,spouse also guitar) Thomas Jefferson --fiddle Patrick Henery--Fiddle Ben Franklin--harp & aromonica Jeff Davis--fiddle J.E.B. Stewart--singer ( wife guitar) Mark Twain--piano

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 05:21 PM

Maybe Dahlgren used his leg as a percussion instrument.

Back to the original question, though.... I think this has already been said but back in those days, a lot of people played instruments because live music was one of the most prominent forms of entertainment. There was no recorded music, no TV, no radio, so people had to make their own. And since dancing was a major form of exercise and recreation, somebody had to play the tunes! and if there was nobody to play the tunes, well, that's where mouth music comes in (babayagawatermelon)... although I don't know how prominent that was in the Colonies.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST, Banjo Johnny
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 02:51 PM

Bill Clinton plays a mean "Night Train" on tenor. == Johnny

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Mbo
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 01:40 PM

Well dang it was him! Funny, I never heard anything about his leg before.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Mbo
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 01:34 PM

I think you people got the wrong Ulric Dahlgren!

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 01:23 PM

Brian, I think the original question was specifically about Presidents and founding fathers. If we're just asking about "American heroes," it's an easy one to answer -- Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charles Ives, Robert Johnson, Benny Goodman, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix...

(no intended slights here -- I could have gone on forever)

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 01:22 PM

Wasn't Dahlgren the one whose wooden leg was captured?

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 01:16 PM

Well I'll leave it up to others as to how much of a "hero" he was, but Dick Nixon most certainly played the piano on The Grand Ole Opry. Roy Acuff stood next to him and positively beamed.

Rick

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Mbo
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:06 AM

As far as I know, Dahlren didn't lose a leg. Was it on one the Kill Cavalry raids?

--M

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:55 AM

Well Pete there was US Grant, already mentioned, who claimed he was tone deaf and only knew two songs: "One is Yankee Doodle and the other isn't."

Spaw

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:50 AM

Mbo-- does that mean that you have only one leg?

but comically folks, 150 years ago one was expected to be able to play an instrument fairly well and as I read about that time it seems almost everybody could do SOMETHING besides their chosen profession. James A. Garfield even proved some famous unsolved theorem in plane geometry having to do with angle trisection. (no, he didn't discover a construction for doing so but it was something else related to that)

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: L R Mole
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:24 AM

Mark Twain played piano (loudly and enthusiastically, though his wife might have wished for less of both qualities) and travelled with a Martin "2 1/2-7", a picture of which is over my desk. (The guitar, not Mr. Clemens, who is up on the same wall...) James Thurber loved to sing harmony, barbershop or some varient, especially "Bye, Bye, Blackbird", for some reason. Joshua L. Chamberlain, hero of Gettysburg, was a good double bass player. As observed, pre-radio, a good guest was expected to have a party piece, either a song, or a poem, or a memorized oration, to entertain the company with.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Mbo
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:23 AM

Did I ever metion I look a bit like Ulric Dahlgren?

--M

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:07 AM

You think he looks like Garth in that picture? Hmmm..... I'll have to go look again. Although I think Don Henley bears an uncanny resemblance to US Grant.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Mbo
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:05 AM

Kim, have you even seen the prewar picture of J.E.B. Stuart, clean shaven? I swear he looks exactly like Garth Brooks...it's spooky.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 09:58 AM

Supposedly Jefferson Davis played the fiddle. (now before anybody complains that Jeff Davis was a Confederate, let me remind you that before that he was the US Secretary of War, and a Mexican War hero.) Confederate General Jeb Stuart (who had also been in the regular army before the late unpleasantness)was reported to have been a very good singer. I don't know if he played an instrument but he always had musicians with him. His wife Flora Cooke Stuart (whose father was a Union general) played the guitar.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Charcloth
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 09:10 AM

I had thought that Jefferson played the violin, & I had forgotten about the aromonica. As A side Note I read a review on the fellow who's web site you posted, catspaw, He is supposed to have a very nice Christmas recording. In reguards to American Heros, I guess I'm mostly interested in Early American folks but anybody who would be listed in a high school history book would be of interst to me. Heck for that matter even noteable (no pun intended) persons though out world history would be of interest to me. (Especialy Scottish)

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 08:46 AM

Hmmm . . define 'American hero'? I'm fascinated by the speed that this turned into a list of presidents.

Brian

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: JedMarum
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 08:42 AM

thanks for the link, spaw - 'twas a very interesting sidetrack.

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 08:35 AM

Regarding Andrew Jackson.......His wife was reported to be an EXCELLENT bajoist and a guitar player as well. Their home, the "Hermitage" in Nashville has a guitar shaped driveway.

Spaw

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 08:28 AM

I believe Nixon played piano as well (although nobody knows it, because Lauren Bacall didn't get her picture taken lounging on his piano).

Subject: RE: American heros who played music
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 07:38 AM

Don't forget that Franklin was also an inventor of the "Armonica" and considered it one of his better inventions. Went looking and found THIS WEBSITE for more info.

Spaw