#BOBBY HORTON BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM FULL#
#BOBBY HORTON BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM PLUS#
#BOBBY HORTON BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM SERIES#

President Lincoln loved his soldiers and they loved him. 'The Why and Wherefore' reminded the soldier in the ranks of why he was fighting this war, and it proved to be an effective recruiting tool. 'May God Save the Union' was one of the more popular hymn-like songs. Bradbury were all heard everywhere the Union Army went. Norton, 'New York Volunteer', and 'Marching Along' by William B. Other patriotic, marching tunes include 'The Army of the Free' by Frank H. 'Battle Cry of Freedom' was written in the early war period by George Root and was one of the most popular marching songs of the common soldier throughout the whole war. Several of the songs presented here are patriotic. Settings include: military band music, with cornets, baritone horns, fifes, and drums parlor music and campfire tunes include a wide array of instruments, such as piano, horns, fiddle, mandolin, Celtic harp, tin whistle, harmonica, hammer dulcimer, banjo and guitar. This recording features a variety of musical styles that were common in the 1860's. Like the others I played all the instruments (many were made in the 19th century), performed all the vocal parts, hand drew the cover and liner notes, and recorded here in my home production studio - hence the 'Homespun' in the title. This is the first recording of music of the men who wore the blue. I had accumulated a lot of Northern material, so I decided to do so.

#BOBBY HORTON BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM SERIES#

His series of recordings of authentic 'period' music has been acclaimed by historical organizations and publications throughout America and Europe.' In 1987, a friend in the National Park Service suggested that I supplement my Confederate series (there were four at that time) with a series of Union recordings.

#BOBBY HORTON BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM PLUS#

He has also produced and performed music scores for ten Ken Burns PBS films, including 'The Civil War', 'Baseball', and 'Mark Twain', two films for the A & E Network, plus sixteen films for The National Park Service. For more than 30 years he has performed with the musical-comedy group Three On A String. Horton brings us very close to the spirit of the army that, Stephen Vincent Benét wrote, “Swore and laughed and despaired and sang ‘Lorena,’/Suffered, died, deserted, fought to the end.… Who wept for the mocking-bird on Hallie’s grave/When you had better cause to weep for more private griefs.'A seasoned performer, Bobby Horton is a multi-instrumentalist, a composer, producer, and a music historian.

#BOBBY HORTON BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM FULL#

Horton calls his renditions homespun because “I played and sang all of this music myself and recorded it here at my home on an old Teac four-channel tape recorder.” In fact, however, the performances are highly polished and full of verve and conviction. The best of the songs are as rousing today as they were in the 1860s. Here is “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” with stuffy lyrics trying to make this stirring Yankee song appropriate to the Southern cause, and a much more convincing transformation in which “Listen to the Mockingbird” becomes “Listen to the Minie Balls.” The postwar “I’m a Good Old Rebel,” with its chilling and childish grudge bearing (“Three hundred thousand Yankees are stiff in Southern dust/We killed three hundred thousand before they conquered us/ They died of Southern fever, of Southern steel and shot/I wish it was three million, instead of what we got”), is counterbalanced by the mellow lilt of “Long Ago,” a veterans’ celebration of the bold days of their youth sung to the tune of “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.” The eighteen Horton has selected for his tape range from the sad and gorgeous “Lorena” to “Home Sweet Home”-another one popular with both armies-played on the hammer dulcimer. The songs, of course, reflected the temper of the armies: merry, homesick, melancholy, irreverent, and brave. It is hard to say which side had the musical edge-the North may have had the best lyrics (“The Battle Hymn of the Republic”), but the South had the best tune (“Dixie”), and both sides sang it whenever they got the chance. īobby Horton does not use the conventional language of the historian-he explains, for instance, that despite its Yankee genesis the lugubrious ballad “All Quiet along the Potomac Tonight” became popular around Southern campfires and thus was “a true crossover hit”-and yet his tape of Confederate Army war songs is an impressive and affecting piece of historical reconstruction.Ĭivil War soldiers were often poorly trained, poorly led, poorly fed, and poorly armed, but no two armies ever went into the field equipped with better songs. By Bobby Norton Bobby Horton, 5245 Beacon Drive, Birmingham, AL 35210.

Bobby horton battle cry of freedom