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► : — : Old Kentucky Home 5 Composed on Visit I Foster Finished Music and = Lyrics of Famous American Folk Song in One Afternoon By DAN RICHMAN Staff Correspondent 2 As the melodic strains of "My Old Ken- a tucky Home" accompany the horses post- S ward for the 81st running of the Kentucky I Derby this afternoon, there will be the * usual number of, cynics in the crowd at 2 Churchill Downs who, giving ear to this 3 traditional musical salute to Americas turf classic, will • lay you eight to five that ► Stephen Foster never even set foot in the . Blue Grass State, much less had a home j there, old or otherwise. Such agnosticism 1 is, of course, based on the twin propositions that no true son of Tin Pan Alley ever had a Mammy in Alabammy and, if nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning, how come songwriters never wake up in Manhattp/n tm*l noon and then dont venture any farther South than the Brill Building. Lived in Pittsburgh and New York Despite these self-evident truths, however, anybody picking up the challenge of the Foster pyrrhonists at the Derby today Will have a sure thing going for him. For Stephen Collins Foster and his "Old Kentucky Home" constitute a notable exception to the rule that the only thing really authentic about southern songs is the exposure of the NewJYork apartments wherein theyre dreamed up. While its true that Foster never possessed an old Kentucky home of his own — his brief life was lived mostly in Pittsburgh, his birthplace, and New York— the song that became his best-known and best-loved contribution to American folk music was very definitely inspired by the sort of surroundings depicted in its lyrics. "My Old Kentucky Home" was written 102 years ago as a musical souvenir of a visit enjoyed by Foster and his sister at the picturesque homestead of a relative of theirs, Judge later United States senator John Rowan. Judge Rowans home was in Bardstown, Kentucky, and at the time of Continued on Page Twenty-Three JEANS JOE — Already wearing a Derby. * OldKentuckyHome Composed on Visit Fostelr Finished Music and Lyrics of Famous American Folk Song in One Afternoon Continued from far* Sere* the Fosters visit twas summer, the sun shone bright, the darkies were gay the corn top was ripe and the meadow was in bloom. Seated on the veranda maybe that should have an "H" tacked on the end of it considering the locale Foster had the first lines of his lyric all beautifully visually laid out for him.. Within an hour the melody and wordage were finished. Died From Loss of Bldod iV Even without the lush setting of a rich southern plantation to serve him as inspiration Foster was remarkably facile at penning words and music speedily and prolifically. In one year — 1850 three years before "My Old Kentucky Home"— he wrote 52 songs; in 1863 — the year preceding his death at the age of 3? — he produced 48 compositions. During his tragically short career he turned out more than 200 numbers, 160 of which were published. As the magazine Musical Amercia put it on the occasion of the semi-centennial observance of his passing "He would write and compose a song in the morning sell it in the afternoon and spend the proceeds in dissipation before night." The atmosphere of soft serene gentility in which "My Old Kentucky Home" had been born was in painful contrast to the harsh shocking circumstances of its cre- ators demise only -a little over a decade ■ later. Ill with fever in a cheap hotel in , New York he crawled out of bed during * the night to get a drink of water but was ! so weak that he fell gashing his neck i against the broken lip of the water pitcher on the washstand. He lay unconscious on the floor of his room until a hotel employee happened to find him; taken to Believue, he died the next. day— January 13, 1864— from loss of blood Fosters identity wasnt known* at the hospital, and his body was removed to the city morgue, where it reposed for several days before friends finally traced it and saved this countrys greatest folk-song, composer from a paupers grave. "Weep no more, my lady" fortunately turned out to carry a less bitter meaning than it might otherwise have had.
