ExclusiveStephen Foster: The Father of American Music

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannon. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories, but here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous and some are obscure, but each person deserves to be discovered because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans It's a bold and often ubiquitous claim when we call somebody the father of some artistic development. Whether it's the father of this or the mother of that, we tend to like to think of artistic people as being the parent of the art form which they develop and nurture. Francioso Haydn is called the father of the symphony and the string quartet, Claudio Monteverdi is the father of opera, and Martha Graham is called the mother of modern dance. But there's one man who is given credit with developing not just one type of music, but all music in America. Today we're going to talk about the man who is called the father of American music. Many people who are very popular in their own day quickly pass from the public knowledge, sometimes within their own lifetimes or shortly after their death. However, one composer is still regarded as the writer of some of the most recognizable songs, not only in America but around the world, defining that American style of music. Although this man was born 200 years ago this year, his tunes and his name are still instantly recognizable. This man is Stephen Foster. Very appropriately for the man who would come to define the songs of our nation, he was born on our nation's birthday, July 4th, 1826. He was the ninth child and the youngest child in his family, and his father was an important businessman in Pennsylvania, particularly in the city of Pittsburgh. He also was a politician, holding a few different offices of importance, being the mayor, and founding and naming the community of Lawrenceville, which is where young Stephen was born. Because of his father's affluence, Stephen had a rich education in the liberal arts, going to several different private schools throughout Pennsylvania. There he studied mathematics, diction, English grammar, the classical literature, Greek, and Latin. One thing which he didn't study was music, but from a young age he knew that he loved it, so he was a self-taught musician. He taught himself how to play several musical instruments, including the piano, the guitar, the clarinet, and the flute, the last of which would become his main instrument. He never formally studied composition, but he learned a lot from a German man who was a composer and songwriter and music publisher himself, whose last name was Kleber. And although Kleber was only a few years, comparatively, older than Foster, he learned a lot from him by working alongside him. When he was only 14, Stephen Foster wrote his first song, A Simple Waltz, and at the age of 18, he had his first song published. This song was Open Thy Lattice, Love, Listen to Me. Stephen Foster was of English and Scott Ulster descent, and growing up in Pennsylvania, particularly in the Pittsburgh area, he was influenced by a lot of different immigrants. He had exposure to the German immigrants, the Irish immigrants, Italians, Scottish, and all these different musical styles fell upon his ears when he was a young man. He incorporated those with the church music he heard growing up and the more classical music, which was somewhat popular in America in parlors, excerpts from operas and symphonies, and all these different tunes and melodies became part of the musical fabric which inspired him. Now, there are many conflicting reports about Foster's life, particularly in his early days. For years, the main biographer and the only really established account of his life and the events therein was from his brother. In recent years, some people have begun to question the events as depicted by his brother, thinking that perhaps he wanted to preserve his brother's memory in the most favorable and poetic light, not necessarily being completely accurate. Thus, in the last few decades, there have been a few more biographers who have studied his personal letters and his diary and other correspondence, as well as events of the day, to provide a slightly more accurate take on everything that happened in his life. Nevertheless, the accounts of the closest relatives often are very insightful, even if not 100% accurate, because who would have known him better than his brother? Stephen Foster was encouraged very strongly by his father to get into some kind of an industry, as his older brothers had done. So, going along with his father's wishes, he became the bookkeeper for his brother's firm, and he worked there for a few years. But meanwhile, he never stopped composing, and he drew upon the influences of music he'd heard from his sisters when they were having piano lessons, and the classical music which he heard and loved. One idea which many people have presented is that, as a young boy, and his brother mentioned this story, a servant brought him to the church where Black people went. So, he heard this music, and this is still in the antebellum days, so this is before the Civil War, and Black people were still, for the most part, slaves in the United States, not entirely in Pennsylvania, there were some freed Black people, but he heard this music that was in their worship services, and that inspiration, the passion which they had, and the fervor in the gospel music, and that that inspired him with his own composition. Some people, in a more critical eye, have thus suggested that Foster didn't really compose most of his songs. Instead, he merely was passing off what the Black people had written. But thorough examination of not only his musical style, but his actual history, shows that that's not the case. If you look at the musical composition styles which Foster used, they incorporated very little of the rhythms which Black music had. Instead, they were more like the waltzes, the reels, or the jaunty little Celtic folk songs that the Scottish and Irish people had brought to the United States. In fact, those who are seeking to erase some of Foster's influence because they think that he was prejudiced, are doing him a great disservice, because, in fact, he created a very favorable and positive depiction of Black Americans at a time when they usually were presented in caricature or in comedy. Foster composed 273 different works during his relatively short life, but of those, only 23 were Southern. Nevertheless, he's best known for his Southern or Minstrel-type songs. In fact, it was the Southern and Minstrel-style music that made him very popular, and that was also what earned him his living. Foster was the first American who was able to support himself just with the earnings from music he published. Before that, music publication wasn't as big of an industry in the United States. Surely, people did publish music and they bought sheet music in great quantities, but many composers would write a few songs and then have to do other things. But Foster's songs, particularly those main Minstrel-Southern songs, were very successful. Now, he still often struggled to make ends meet because the music rights as related to publication and performance weren't what they are today, and many composers struggled to retain the rights to their own works. Sometimes the publishers would end up having more of the money from it, or he would often borrow against the strengths of his future writing, or he would sign away the rights to his future compositions when he needed money at the present. So he often was in debt because of that. The first song Foster wrote that established him as a Minstrel composer was The Old Folks at Home, best known today as Swanee River. This song was quickly popularized by the Christy Minstrel singers, and pretty soon Christy Minstrel wanted to claim it as his own composition. But Foster eventually had the music published under his own name, and it began to sell with wild popularity, and this inspired him to write more Southern songs. Because of the popularity and intrinsic charm of the Minstrel-Southern and Black-themed songs that Foster wrote, many people think he was a Southerner. But in fact, he spent most of his life in Pennsylvania. He only visited the South once, on his honeymoon in 1852. He and his wife went on a riverboat down the Mississippi River, and he visited New Orleans. But other than that, it was more the poetic idea of the South that he depicted in song and rhyme. In later reprints, or in pirated versions or foreign copies, his sheet music on the cover would often include caricatures and exaggerated stereotypes of Black people. But that wasn't the case on the original sheet music of any of Foster's works, because he didn't agree with doing that. He didn't write too many overtly abolitionist songs, even as the Civil War was beginning. But instead, he depicted the condition of the slave in a more melancholy rather than comical manner, and he would instruct Minstrel singers to perform them that way, not for laughs, but with great feeling and sentiment. And in fact, when he would write the words to many of his songs, because he often wrote his own lyrics, he would change a few letters to depict the Southern accent, but not to the exaggerated, often offensive degree that later reprints would. Although best known for those main Southern songs, like Masses in the Cold, Cold Ground, Camptown Races, Old Folks at Home, etc., Foster also wrote other works that were more for the parlor, more romantic. He wrote many works which were inspired by operas, as he'd heard, such as some duets. And then in his later years, he dedicated himself to rearranging earlier songs he'd written, specifically for performance with voice and guitar. One of the songs he wrote which is considered the most Irish or Scottish in its theme is I Dream of Jeannie, also known as Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair. He wrote this song in honor of his wife, whose name was Jane, since he called her Jeannie. His song Oh Susanna became very popular during the westward expansion. It became sort of an anthem of the American citizens who were traveling out west, specifically during the gold rush of 1849. So it became the 49ers anthem, and they would sing it because they're talking about going someplace else with the banjo, singing around the campfire, and, you know, don't cry for me because I'll be back soon. And Foster was often surprised by the way his songs captured people's imagination. He would often focus on the composition and publication of minstrel works because that was where he was able to make more money. But it wasn't just for business purposes. He was inspired to write these minstrel songs because, as he wrote in a letter to a minstrel performer, he thought that a lot of the music that was being performed in minstrel shows at the time was very vulgar. He referred to it as trashy and having trashy words, and he thought it was offensive and that it didn't capture the dignity of those people and the potential sentiment. So that's why he was inspired to write songs which would really stir the heart. And he truly was able to touch the minds, ears, and hearts of the nation. His songs were simple, catchy, and easily memorable. You could sing them if you didn't have much musical background. On the other hand, his songs became very popular to perform by the greatest opera singers of the day. Singers like Jenny Lind, Adelina Patti, and later John McCormick. Even more recent singers like Thomas Hampson, or in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, great American baritone Nelson Eddy, made recordings of these songs and included them in their live performances because he did have inspiration from operas or other classical works. Some of his songs, like Camptown Races, are more on the the comical side, but others, like Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair, are far more melodious and beautiful. And when sung properly, they show a beautiful vocal line expressing very real emotions to which anyone can relate, often focusing on themes of longing for home, missing loved ones, the sadness of death of someone about whom you care. In the last few years of his life, Foster definitely composed less as he was dealing with health concerns and facing a lot of debt. He separated from his wife for a while, but after reuniting with her and his daughter, he began writing much more. And he started writing more comical songs that weren't necessarily southern in theme, such as If You Only Have a Moustache, or Mr. and Mrs. Brown, these funny parlor songs that almost seem more British, more like Gilbert and Sullivan songs with the British operetta, showing that he was quite a diverse composer. Sometimes he would set poems by other writers, but usually he wrote his own words as well as music, finding the pairing of the rhythm to be really what would make his songs effective. He began to struggle with fevers and an untreated burn wound from an overturned lamp during the Civil War, and eventually he collapsed one day and hit his head, leading to his death. But one of his greatest works had yet to be published, and that was Beautiful Dreamer. Although he wrote it a couple of years before he died, it wasn't published until after his death, and thus the joint themes of this song were sometimes it's used in depiction merely to someone sleeping, like a beautiful lullaby, but other times it is used in a setting of a eulogy or a very tender song about someone who is sleeping in the eternal sleep, and it was thus very poignant as it was published shortly after his death. Today that song is remembered as one of his most beautiful compositions and one of the last great works that he wrote. Throughout the country and the world, Foster's songs continue to be used to teach people about American music. In Japan, part of the eight-year music program, which is in their school system, is learning many of Foster's songs, and his words and music have been constantly used and reused, sometimes re-lyricized, sometimes parodied, to show people what American music is. I think that there are very few people who don't know at least some of his tunes, such as Swanee River or Oh Susanna. Many other composers of more classical works would weave his songs into their greater classical compositions. Dvorak quoted some of his music, even Giacomo Puccini included references to camptown races in his opera La Pantrulla del West, The Girl of Golden West, when he wanted to create that spirit of particularly gold rush minors, because he realized that was a very important part of American culture, just as it had been mentioned in the American David Belasco play The Girl of Golden West. Playwrights, filmmakers, opera composers, ballet composers, symphony composers, television scorewriters, all have known for decades and even centuries that there is power in Stephen Foster's music. In 1940, Stephen Foster was the first composer to be included in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. From 1939 to 1952, three different Hollywood biopics were made about his life, and his songs were quoted or included in countless other films during that time. In fact, they were particularly popular during the golden era of Hollywood because they were in the public domain, so they could be included for free, and they immediately captured a sentimental American feeling, because everyone alive at that time would have known Stephen Foster's music his whole life. Even the oldest people were probably born after his greatest songs were written. Today, I think people know fewer of his songs than they did a few generations back, but Stephen Foster's songs are definitely worth rediscovering. I highly recommend listening to Nelson Eddy's album of some of Foster's greatest hits. He recorded the southern ones, as well as the more sentimental European-inspired songs, and listening to these great old recordings of these even older songs really helps you understand how these tunes and words have shaped the nation and our understanding of music. Thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you'll join me next time for more American Legends.