1. A little dose of Stephen Foster, the world's first professional popular songwriter. Foster was a Northerner who wrote Southern & blackface songs, many of which are very un-PC today (many uses of "darkies"). But Foster came to see the problem...
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5. Frederick Douglass said that My Old Kentucky Home awakened, "the sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root and flourish." Here it is rendered by John Prine, who died of COVID-19 this springhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYQ4WnFG_0I …
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6. Beautiful Dreamer wasn't even published until 1864, after Foster's death. It's such a durable popular song: here's the Beatles doing a rock spin on it on the BBC in 1963https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHIf-GHjMm0 …
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7. Anyway, Foster's creative & moral arc, his groundbreaking commercial career, & his sad alcoholic demise are all both pieces of his American era & templates for the world of popular music ever since. His gifts were remarkable. He earned his place in the American songbook.
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