Oooh, that mean ol' dannye! How dare he beat me to this writeup! mumblemumblemumbleAmerican songwriter (1826-1864). Born on the
Fourth of July near
Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania (now part of
Pittsburgh), he had little
musical training, but a great
gift for
melody, able to learn any
tune by ear. He taught himself how to play the
clarinet at the age of 6, composed "
The Tioga Waltz" when he was 14, and published his first song -- "
Open Thy Lattice, Love" -- just two years later. His
family tolerated his
fascination with
music, but never really understood it, making him
promise, when he went away to
school, that he would limit his music studies to after 8 o'clock at night.
Foster wrote a number of
songs for "
minstrel shows," in which
white entertainers performed in
blackface, partly because he wanted to improve the
quality of the music and partly because he enjoyed the
songs he heard sung by
slaves in the
Old South. This earned him a bit of
money, but he was a
lousy businessman, selling many of his most
famous songs for a mere
pittance.
He worked for his brother in
Cincinnati for a while as a
bookkeeper, but when "
Oh, Susannah" became a
hit during the
California gold rush, he became
popular enough that he was able to work as a
composer full-time. Unfortunately, his
business sense remained a joke, and he took a nosedive into
alcoholism. Though he wrote more than 200 songs, he died in
poverty.
Many of Foster's most popular
songs are still
remembered today, including "
Oh, Susannah," "
Camptown Races," "
Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," and "
Beautiful Dreamer." Many others, including "
Swanee River," "
Massa's in de Cold Ground," and "
Old Black Joe" have become pushed aside as
painful reminders of
American slavery. Foster's
songs were once considered
American standards, but there is now little
hope that his music will still be
remembered at the beginning of the next century...