STEPHEN C. FOSTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1940, Page 9

STEPHEN C. FOSTER

AMERICA'S GREAT TROUBADOUR. Stephen Collins Foster, American song-and ballad writer, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., on July 4, 1826. He was the youngest child of a merchant of Irish descent who became a member of the State Legislature and was related by marriage to President Buchanan. Stephen Foster early showed talent for music and played upon the flageolet, the guitar and the banjo; he also acquired a fair knowledge cf French and German. He was sent to scnool in Towanda, Pa., and later tio Athens. Pa., and when 13 years old he wrote the song, “Sadly to Mine Heart Appealing.” At 16 he wrote "Open Thy Lattice, Love”; at 17 he entered his brother's business house in Cincinnati, 0., where he remained about three years, composing meanwhile such popular pieces as “-Old Uncle Ned,” “Oh! Susanna!” and others. He then adopted song-writing as a profession. His chief successes were songs written for the Negro melodists or Christy’s Minstrels. Besides those mentioned the following attained great popularity: “My Old Kentucky Home” “The Old Folks at Home,” (Swanee River), “Old Black Joe,” “Ring, Ring de Banjo,” “De Camptown Races,” “Jeanie Light Brown Hair,” “Oh! Susanna!” etc. For these and other songs the composer received considerable sums for the period, “The Old Folks at Home” bringing him £3OO. For most of his songs Foster wrote both words and music. In 1850 he married Jane McDowell and moved to New York, but soon returned to Pittsburgh. His reputation rests chiefly on his negro melodies, many of which have been popular on both sides of the Atlantic and sung in • many languages. “Old Black Joe,” the last of these Negro melodies, appeared in 1861. Although as a musician and a composer Foster has little claim to high classical rank, his songs give him a prominent place in the modern development of popular music and they represent a major portion of America’s only real folk music. For in his brief 38 years, Foster tasted the heady wine of success and died on January 13. 1864. a broken man who had found his last refuge in a shabby Bowery rooming house in New York—with a pitiful handful of coins (38 cents, ironically enough) and a scribbled note for a new song. "Dear friends and gentle hearts," his sole worldly possessions. Today memorials stand in his honour from Florida (which has made his “Swanee River” its State song) to New York; and his “The Old Folks at Home” is not only America’s No. 1 folk tune but one of the most widely sung songs in the world!