Favorite Songs

[skamikaze]

i generally like anything irish, such as finnegan's wake, wild rover, the last of the irish rover, all for me grog etc....

[Robert A Mosher]

i generally like anything irish, such as finnegan's wake, wild rover, the last of the irish rover, all for me grog etc....

You'll be happy to hear then that with the exception of "the last of the irish rover" for which I have no information, all of the songs mentioned are period correct!

Robert A. Mosher

[skamikaze]

as far as i've seen, and as goes with many folk songs, no one seems to know its exact date of origin. however, the first verse goes:

"In the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and six,
We set sail from the Coal Quay of Cork"

so, take that as you may, it gives some time frame but not much.

[crowley_greene]

You ask what songs want to be heard, and I would have to give this answer: correct camp duty calls. Not enough reenactor musicians are able to play the correct camp calls.

I read music, and am coming along pretty well in learning the fife myself. What music collection can I find the camp duty calls in?

Murray Therrell
Paragould, AR

[Robert A Mosher]

as far as i've seen, and as goes with many folk songs, no one seems to know its exact date of origin. however, the first verse goes:

"In the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and six,
We set sail from the Coal Quay of Cork"

so, take that as you may, it gives some time frame but not much.

But it's not always a reliable guide. One of my favorite songs is "Follow me up to Carlow" about the Geraldine rebellion in Ireland in the early 17th Century - the song, sadly, was written in the late 20th Century.

But what you can go by is old song books, sheet music, and song collections many of which are now accessible on line. That's how I found the sheet music copy of "Finnegan's Wake" dated 1864! Given how sheet music publishers worked, it suggests that the song actually predated 1864 since this copy was printed in the US.

Robert A. Mosher

[John Legg]

Bruce and Emmetts Drum and Fife Guide

oh i also like **** on the Wabash

JL

[Archibald Mungo]

Can someone provide me info on "Lil Liza Jane" being published, performed...etc, before 1916?

I keep hearing whole companies singing this song at reenactments while marching past spectators, but have yet to find any proof that it was a CW period song. The only thing I have ever found is sheet music saying it was written in 1916.

[MDRebCAv]

I think my top ten (no particular order) favorites must be:

1. The Bonnie Blue Flag
2. Kingdom Comin'
3. Dixie
4. Nelly Bly
5. Old Dan Tucker
6. Aura Lee
7. Lorena
8. Rose of Alabama
9. Yankee Doodle
10. The Bedbug and the Flea (AKA Marching Through Georgia)

----Dan.

[Fifer26]

Can someone provide me info on "Lil Liza Jane" being published, performed...etc, before 1916?

I keep hearing whole companies singing this song at reenactments while marching past spectators, but have yet to find any proof that it was a CW period song. The only thing I have ever found is sheet music saying it was written in 1916.

The earliest publication of "L'il Liza Jane" that I have seen is 1906. The sheet music says it was "composed by Countess Ada de Lachau" for the play "Come Out of the Kitchen" (also dated 1906). This is from the Duke University sheet music collection at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/ .
Another good source for 19th and 20th century sheet music is the Levy Collection at Johns Hopkins University: http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/
The Levy Collection includes a different song, "Goodbye Liza Jane," dating from the 1870s.

Bill Bynum
26th NCT

[Fifer26]

I read music, and am coming along pretty well in learning the fife myself. What music collection can I find the camp duty calls in?

Murray Therrell
Paragould, AR

Murray,

As John Legg wrote, the duty calls can be found in Bruce and Emmett. However, B&E "fancied up" the fife calls compared to earlier books. Probably the more common duty calls used during the war are those found in "Howe's United States Regulation Drum and Fife Instructor" (1861, though I have heard the original publication date is 1857). FWIW, the camp calls used in "American Veteran Fifer," collected from Union veterans in 1905, are from Howe.

Bill Bynum
26th NCT