专辑简介

The songs and instrumental tunes performed by the 2nd South Carolina String Band would have been considered the "pop" music of the period beginning in the late 1820's and running through the 1860's - the American Civil War - and beyond. In the years following the American Revolution and the War of 1812, Americans were determined to reject the European classical musical forms and were searching for their own distinctly American musical "voice." They found it in the frontier tradition of tall-tales of larger-than-life American characters such as Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyon, Old Dan Tucker and John Henry. Composers such as Joel Sweeney, Daniel Emmett, Stephen Foster, and George Root, soon arrived on the scene; men who wrote music for a living, to appeal to the masses. This music was unique in that it had no classical background. Its roots were in Celtic, American and African folk melodies. Its songs were filled with the language, slang, and experiences of the common man rather than the intellectual elites and its impact on American culture echoes down to the present day.

The 2nd South Carolina String Band plays the songs and music that moved the American people of the early and mid-eighteen hundreds. They play the music that was in the hearts and minds and on the tongues of the citizen-soldiers that made up the ranks of the armies of the North and the South as they marched off to take part in the cataclysmic struggle that was to become the defining event of our nation's history. They play it on instruments of the era and in an authentic manner and style that carries the listener back to simpler times. They play with a verve and excitement that infects even the most reserved listener with their own enjoyment and brings back to vibrant life the tumultuous energy of the American experience during the War Between the States. To experience the 2nd South Carolina String Band is, for a moment, to reach out and touch the past.