Civil War Music. 2nd South Carolina String Band

2010 Schedule

southernadmin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:07:22 +0000

Several live appearances of the 2nd South Carolina String Band have already been scheduled:

Ball in Lynchburg, Va on 27 March

New Market: May 15 & 16

Gettysburg: 2-5 July

Cedar Creek: 16, 17 Oct

Lightning in a Jar

southernadmin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:57:54 +0000

Powerful, high energy Double CD with 26 songs recorded LIVE at two back-to-back, sold out shows. Over 2 hours of favorite Civil War songs played on period instruments in authentic arrangements. Bobby Horton says, “It’s like eavesdropping on history.”

Dulcem Melodies

southernadmin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:03:10 +0000

Nelly Bly • Hard Crackers Come Again No More • Stonewall Jackson’s Way/Garryowen • Listen to the Mockingbird/Siege of Vicksburg • Amazing Grace • Clare de Kitchen • Kelton’s Reel/Waiting For the Federals • My Old Kentucky Home • The Yellow Rose of Texas • Southron’s Battle Cry of Freedom • The Minstrel Boy • Southron’s Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! • Jim Along Josie • Sweet Evalina • War Song of Dixie • Hawks and Eagles

In this their fifth album, the 2nd South Carolina String Band once again brings you the songs and music that moved the American people of the early and mid-eighteen hundreds. They play the music that was in the hearts and minds and on the tongues of the citizen-soldiers that made up the ranks of the armies of the North and the South as they marched off to take part in the cataclysmic struggle that was to become the defining event of our nation’s history. They play it on instruments of the era and in an authentic manner and style that carries the listener back to simpler times. They play with a verve and excitement that infects even the most reserved listener with their own enjoyment and brings back to vibrant life the tumultuous energy of the American experience during the War Between the States. To experience the 2nd South Carolina String Band is, for a moment, to reach out and touch the past.

In High Cotton

southernadmin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:44:50 +0000

Lynchburg Town/Briggs’ Jig • Old Folks at Home (Swanee River) • Granny Will Your Dog Bite/Guilderoy • O Lemuel • ‘Twill Neber Do to Gib It Up So (De Ol’ Jim Ribber) • Liza Jane/Mississippi Sawyer/Road to Boston • I’m Gwine Ober de Mountain • De Blue Tail Fly • Angelina Baker/Angeline the Baker • Virginia Reel Medley • Jordan Is a Hard Road • Old Rosin the Beau • Glendy Burke • The White Cockade/Devil’s Dream • Down in Alabama • Bonnie Blue Flag

IN HIGH COTTON will bring the listener back more than 150 years to hear music that was essentially laying the foundations of American popular music in the years leading up to the War Between the States. You’ll hear timeless melodies created by American musical icons Stephen Foster and Daniel Emmett, such as The Old Folks at Home (Swanee River) and The Blue Tail Fly. Songs about life on the nation’s earliest highways of commerce – America’s mighty rivers. You’ll hear songs of heartbreak and songs of joy and delight. The listener will hear minstrel melodies that were adapted by the soldiers to reflect the experiences of war and by making fun of those hardships in song, make them easier to bear.

Photos from the set of Gods and Generals

southernadmin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:42:59 +0000

In November, 2001, the 2nd South Carolina String Band recorded (with musicians David Kincaid and John Whelan) “The Bonnie Blue Flag” at Sound on Sound Studios in New York City. This was soundtrack music for a scene in the upcoming Turner/Warner Brothers film, “Gods and Generals” directed by Ron Maxwell. In December, they travelled to the film set in Maryland to appear in a concert scene with actors Robert Duvall, Stephen Lang, Patrick Gorman and hundreds of Confederate reenactors.

Southern Soldier

southernadmin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:19:50 +0000

Dixie’s Land • Southern Soldier • Good Ol’ Rebel • Jenny Get Your Hoe Cake Done • Old Dan Tucker • Fisher’s Hornpipe • Palmetto Quickstep (Instrumental) • Johnny Booker • Jackson in the Valley • Kemo Kimo • McLeod’s Reel (Instrumental) • Oh! Lud Gals! • Boatman’s Song • Hard Times • Rock dat Cradle, Julie (Soldier’s Joy) • John Brown’s March / John Brown’s Dream (Instrumental) • Arkansas Traveler (Instrumental) • Zip Coon

Southern Soldier is a collection of songs and melodies which were well known to Southerners and Northerners alike; tunes that were a familiar and comfortable part of life in the years leading up to the War Between the States. Many of these compositions were written by the likes of Stephen Foster and Daniel Emmett, giants of the popular music industry of their day. Some of the titles, Ol’ Dan Tucker, Dixie’s Land, and Hard Times Come Again No More, are still familiar to the modern-day ear. Other titles on this album, though not familiar to the eye, will be quickly recognizable to the ear. ALL selections on this album are performed on authentic instruments of the period and were chosen for the appealing nature of their rhythms and melodies. They are presented with as unique and individual a spirit as one might expect from a true Confederate camp band of the era.

Hard Road

southernadmin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:28:05 +0000

The best of the first two cassette albums

Tenting in the Old Campground • Battle Cry of Freedom • Cavalier’s Waltz • When Johnny Comes Marching Home • Cindy • Oh! Susanna • Invalid Corps • Buffalo Gals • Kingdom Coming • Bonnie Blue Flag • Jine the Cavalry • Ring de Banjo • Rose of Alabama • Camptown Races • Goober Peas • Cumberland Gap • Sweet Betsey from Pike • Lorena • The Vacant Chair • Richmond is a Hard Road

The 2nd South Carolina String Band recorded their first album; WE’RE TENTING TONIGHT, in 1991. Containing 15 of the most popular songs of the War Between the States, it was well received from the start and continues to be a strong seller. In fact, it was so well received that the band was encouraged to produce a second album, WE ARE A BAND OF BROTHERS, released two years later in 1993. This recording profited from the experience gained since the first – being produced in a better studio with better technology – as well as from two more years of performances together by a band whose reputation was already spreading rapidly. This second album contained another 15 of the most well known songs of the era, thus making the two together a sort of “Top 30″ of the Civil War. Many years later, these two albums continue to attract listeners and fans, new and old. So much so that, pursuant to countless requests to bring them both out on CD, we have done just that! We are proud to offer the our first two albums together at last on one recording. The best of WE’RE TENTING TONIGHT and WE ARE A BAND OF BROTHERS, are here presented with a driving, spirited, and exciting sound worthy of the men whose memory and spirit we strive to honor and evoke.

2nd South Carolina String Band

southernadmin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:23:10 +0000

The purpose of the 2nd South Carolina String Band is to perform Civil War music as authentically as possible. In their albums the listener will hear the music of the 19th century played on 19th century period instruments in the appropriate style. This is the music as it truly sounded to the soldiers of the Civil War.

The 2nd South Carolina String Band was formed in August of 1989 by five riflemen of Co.I, 2nd SC Volunteer Infantry, a unit of Civil War reenactors that was very active during the five years of events celebrating the 125th Anniversary of the Civil War – and for many years to follow. After the battles, drills and inspections, the boys who had instruments played and sang around the campfire while members of the unit would often join in and sing along. This was the beginning of the 2nd South Carolina String Band.

Without recognizing it at the time, the group, comprised of mostly amateur musicians playing banjo, fiddle, and guitar, tambourine, bones and military drum – had coalesced into a 20th century recreation of a typical American Civil War camp band. In the beginning they played only at night around their company camp fire as they enthusiastically began to explore and perform the music of the War Between the States. Soon they began performing for reenactment dances and concert audiences.

More than a decade and a half has passed since the summer they met, and the band’s popularity has grown within the Civil War reenactment community and far beyond. During the same period the group itself has grown and matured in their musicianship, sense of historical accuracy, and presentation. The group has changed over time, adding new members and instruments – a second fiddle, fife, pennywhistle and flute. It now numbers eight regular members (with a few frequent guest artists) and they’re proud to say that four of the original five men are “still with the colors” – still proudly representing the much renowned but no longer active infantry company they once marched with.

Over the years they have worked with filmmaker Ken Burns in contributing period music to the soundtracks for the documentaries “Mark Twain”, and the Emmy nominated “JAZZ”. In addition to the ‘JAZZ’ nomination, Erik went on to win Emmys for film editing in ‘Unforgivable Blackness. The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson,’ and for sound editing in ‘War’, both films by Ken Burns’s Florentine Films. Erik has been the producer of all five albums released by the 2nd South Carolina String Band. These CDs have received airplay on folk music stations from Australia to the United Kingdom, including many university radio and National Public Radio stations in the United States. They have been featured in periodicals as diverse as People Magazine, U.S.A. Today and U.S. News & World Report. In 2002, the band was selected by director Ron Maxwell to provide background instrumental music for the soundtrack as well as to give a rousing on-screen performance in the Warner Brothers film, “Gods & Generals”. In November, 2004, at a benefit concert at Gordon College in Massachusetts, the group received the prestigious Stephen Collins Foster Award, in recognition of their contributions to the preservation of 19th century American arts and culture. At a Fall 2005 reenactment they were filmed for an upcoming episode of the British/Public Television travel show, Globe Trekker. On July 4th 2006, they released their fourth CD, Dulcem Melodies, which has been very well received and is “selling like hot cakes”.

The songs and instrumental tunes performed by the 2nd South Carolina String Band would have been considered the “pop” music of the period beginning in the late 1820’s and running through the 1860’s – the American Civil War – and beyond. In the years following the American Revolution and the War of 1812, Americans were determined to reject the European classical musical forms and were searching for their own distinctly American musical “voice.” They found it in the frontier tradition of tall-tales of larger-than-life American characters such as Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyon, Old Dan Tucker and John Henry. Composers such as Joel Sweeney, Daniel Emmett, Stephen Foster, and George Root, soon arrived on the scene; men who wrote music for a living, to appeal to the masses. This music was unique in that it had no classical background. Its roots were in Celtic, American and African folk melodies. Its songs were filled with the language, slang, and experiences of the common man rather than the intellectual elites and its impact on American culture echoes down to the present day.

The 2nd South Carolina String Band plays the songs and music that moved the American people of the early and mid-eighteen hundreds. They play the music that was in the hearts and minds and on the tongues of the citizen-soldiers that made up the ranks of the armies of the North and the South as they marched off to take part in the cataclysmic struggle that was to become the defining event of our nation’s history. They play it on instruments of the era and in an authentic manner and style that carries the listener back to simpler times. They play with a verve and excitement that infects even the most reserved listener with their own enjoyment and brings back to vibrant life the tumultuous energy of the American experience during the War Between the States. To experience the 2nd South Carolina String Band is, for a moment, to reach out and touch the past.

Keemo Kimo

southernadmin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:25:31 +0000

Keemo Kimo

(Recorded on the Southern Soldier album)

In South Carolina de darkeys grow.
Sing song, kitty kitchie-kimeo.
Dat’s whar de white folks plant dey toe.    Sing song, etc.
Dey cover de groun’ all ober wid smoke.      Sing song, etc.
An’ up de darkey heads dey poke.             Sing song, etc.

{Chorus:}

Keemo kimo, dar o whar;
Wid a hi an’ a ho an’ a here come Sally singin’
Some tie penny wid a ling tong nipcat;
Sing song, kitty, kitchie-kimeo.

Sometimes t’ings jus’ go all wrong;                  Sing song, etc.*
Cotton grow short instead of long.                  *–
Whutcha gonna do f’it don’ rain at all?           *–
T’ings grow short instead of tall.                       *–

{Chorus}

Milk in de dairy, nine days old;                                        Sing song, etc.*
De frogs an’ de ‘squitoes gittin’ mighty bold,             *–
We try for to sleep, but it ain’t no use.                        *–
Dey jump all aroun’ in de chicken roost.                     *–

{Chorus}

Dar was a frog lived near a pool;                      Sing song, etc.*
Sho’, he was de bigges’ fool!                               *–
For he could dance an’ he could sing.            *–
Make de woods all ‘round him ring!                *–

{Chorus}

Here’s Keemo Kimo:

In South Carolina de darkeys grow.

Sing song, kitty kitchie-kimeo.

Dat’s whar de white folks plant dey toe. Sing song, etc.

Dey cover de groun’ all ober wid smoke. Sing song, etc.

An’ up de darkey heads dey poke. Sing song, etc.

{Chorus:}

Keemo kimo, dar o whar;

Wid a hi an’ a ho an’ a here come Sally singin’

Some tie penny wid a ling tong nipcat;

Sing song, kitty, kitchie-kimeo.

Sometimes t’ings jus’ go all wrong; Sing song, etc.*

Cotton grow short instead of long. *–

Whutcha gonna do f’it don’ rain at all? *–

T’ings grow short instead of tall. *–

{Chorus}

Milk in de dairy, nine days old; Sing song, etc.*

De frogs an’ de ‘squitoes gittin’ mighty bold, *–

We try for to sleep, but it ain’t no use. *–

Dey jump all aroun’ in de chicken roo *–

{Chorus}

Dar was a frog lived near a pool; Sing song, etc.*

Sho’, he was de bigges’ fool! *–

For he could dance an’ he could sing. *–

Make de woods all ‘round him ring! *–

{Chorus}

Dixie’s Land

southernadmin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:44:34 +0000

2nd South Carolina String band recorded Daniel Emmett’s Dixie for the Southern Soldier album.

(You can hear this song online at last.fm)

I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times there are not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie’s Land!
In Dixie’s Land where I was born in,
Early on one frosty morning,
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie’s Land!