h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

1844? We had the black and white minstrel show on TV, cringed even as a kid.

We truly learn more about how backwards we were every day!

Thanks!

When I researched an entry about the Hutchinson Family A88001011 (first pop star singing group in the US), I read their memoir. Brother John went on and on about how much he hated those minstrel shows. They even wrote a protest song to the tune of 'Old Dan Tucker' to 'steal' it from the minstrels. I was so glad to find out that some musicians objected. But those shows were popular, unfortunately. (WS Gilbert didn't like them.)

Stephen Foster's minstrel numbers ended up in school songbooks. I found one in my grandmother's piano bench one day. I started playing through the book and ran across 'Uncle Ned'. I read the words and hit the ceiling. (I was a teenager, it was the 60s.)

My parents came by and said, 'Oh, yeah, we know that song.' They started singing it - ironically. Ironically didn't improve it.

Yes I remember the Black and White Minstrel show. We've moved on since then, fortunately, but it's easy to fall into other kinds of discrimination, like anti-Moslem rhetoric.

I hope those guys didn't try to do a minstrel show in Concord (Massachusetts). Thoreau would have been furious

I liked the link to that rendition of "Boatman's dance." It's probably better than Aaron Copland's version, to which I give a link here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yety-XtYuiI

It's good to have more than one version, I think.

And I'm impressed by the tolerance of the one guy in town who's a member of the Liberty party.

I went by the electoral map of 1844. The Liberty Party was big in New England, middling in Pennsylvania - but then, Pennsylvania had a candidate in there - and not much anywhere else. But it wouldn't be that long until Emancipation gained traction, as the Hutchinsons sang.

I think I'll pass on Aaron Copland, thanks - he ruins most folk tunes. As when he turned 'Simple Gifts' into that bombastic, over-orchestrated drivel which was the exact opposite of the Shaker hymn.

Two antiques road show...

The election sounds familiar (several months before the result is clear)