Overview
Stephen Foster is the trunk of the tree of American song. His blackface minstrel songs, including ""Oh! Susanna,"" ""Old Folks at Home"" (""Way down upon the Swanee River...""), and ""My Old Kentucky Home,"" and his parlor ballads, such as ""Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,"" and ""Beautiful Dreamer,"" have inspired composers, songwriters, and performers from Charles Ives and George Gershwin to Ray Charles and James Taylor. Foster devoted as much care and craft to his lyrics as he did to his timeless melodies. In this comprehensive new selection, acclaimed music historian Ken Emerson introduces and annotates the lyrics to more than thirty of Foster's best and best-known songs. These masterpieces by America's first full-time professional songwriter, forebear of Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, Carole King, and Bob Dylan, have been so deeply absorbed into our culture that they are often assumed to be folk music. Alongside are fifty other 19th-century American popular songs that influenced Foster or that he in turn influenced, from ""Home! Sweet Home!"" in the 1820s to ""Western Home"" (the original ""Home on the Range"") in the 1870s. About the American Poets Project Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today's most discerning poets and critics.
Full Product Details
Author: Steven Foster ,
Ken Emerson
Publisher: The Library of America
Imprint: The Library of America
Volume: 30
Dimensions:
Width: 11.90cm
, Height: 1.70cm
, Length: 19.80cm
Weight: 0.269kg
ISBN: 9781598530704
ISBN 10: 1598530704
Pages: 204
Publication Date: 15 April 2010
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Pop-song scholar Emerson presents 81 such songs in their earliest incarnations in this neat collection, sorting them in categories that, used in their heyday, still make sense: Plantation Melodies, Parlor Songs, Drinking and Temperance Songs, Songs of Protest and Poverty, War Songs, and Comic Songs. . . . Essential Americana. --Booklist
“Pop-song scholar Emerson presents 81 such songs in their earliest incarnations in this neat collection, sorting them in categories that, used in their heyday, still make sense: Plantation Melodies, Parlor Songs, Drinking and Temperance Songs, Songs of Protest and Poverty, War Songs, and Comic Songs. . . . Essential Americana.”—Booklist
Author Information
Ken Emersonis the author ofDoo-Dah!- Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular CultureandAlways Magic in the Air- The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era.
