Ea teh eh hd STEPHEN FOSTER Hers AMERICAN CLASSICS taht eh ed Compiled and Edited by Stuart Isacoff © Copyright 1985, Ekay Music, Inc, 223 Katonah Avenue, Katonah, NY 10536Contents see OK Hee rE Introduction....... Maria Bach Waltz The Old Folks Quadrille The Village Bells The Tioga Waltz. The Soiree Polka Santa Anna’s Retr Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair Oh! Susanna... Camptown Races Beautiful Dreamer . My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night. Qn The Cover: The only oil portrait for which $teahen Foster's known to have at, painted by ‘Thomas Hicks, a prominent New York and New Jersey portrait artist in the 1850s. Book Design by Richard Deon Research and Production Assistance: Carol LandzbergIntroduction Stephen Colins Foster (1826-1864) was an American original. His songs capture so per- fectly the color and spirit of this often thous ol Say a a n thought of today a3 having folk origins: What man, woman or child doesn’t know and love such enduring Foster favorites as Beau- tiful Dreamer, Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair, Cemptown Rac- es, Oh! Susanna, or My Old Ken- tucky Home, Good Night? In his short life he produced almost two hundred such classics. Yet, a hundred years later we are still discovering Foster pieces to de- light generations of music lovers to come! Although Stephen Foster dem- onstrated musical talent at an ear- ly age, he received little encour- agement from his parents and de- cided to pursue a career as an ac- coun ns charm, Bs sentially self tat , Foster con- tinued to explore musie in his free hours, producing simple, rhythmic tunes with sentimental lyrics which invariably touched local audiences. After some initial suc- cess selling songs to minstrel show leaders, Foster abandoned accounting and linked up with the EB Greer tounter of Cty WP. isty, ler ’s. Minstrels. For a small fee, Foster allowed Christy to name himself composer of Old Folks At Home (subtitled Way Down De Swanee Rib- ber)—which sold 40,000 copies in its first year of publication, Later ‘songs bore the correct attribution of Foster as songwriter, and his oh Original tintype of Stephen Foster, from the Foster Hall Collection, reputation soared. A short, slight whose shoulders ‘droped from a habit of walking with his eyes fixed to the ground, Foster was described by friends as amiable but reserved, often retreating and sometimes sullen. Despite fame and commer- Gial success, he grappled with per sonal demons and alcohol for most of his later years, and died in poverty.