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.

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.

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:  Favorite Camp Songs of the Civil War 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.

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.