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► ■ Old Kentucky Home Composed on Visit ; Foster Finished Music and Lyrics of Famous American ! Folk Song in One Afternoon ■ * By DAN RICHMAN Staff Correspondent ■ As the melodic strains of "My Old Ken- . tucky Home" accompany the horses post- ! ward for the 81st running of the Kentucky : Derby this afternoon, there will be the * usuaj number of cynics in the crowd at ■ Churchill Downs who, giving ear to this traditional musical salute to Americas turf classic, will lay you eight to five that J Stephen Foster never even set foot in the , Blue Grass State, much less had a home ; there, old or otherwise. Such agnosticism i 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 Manhattan until 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 New York 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
