On September 16, 2010 at the Museum of the Confederacy you will learn that Civil War music is more than sheet music and military bands. Few people realize that we can actually listen to music performed by Civil War veterans on cylinder and 78-rpm disc recordings from the early twentieth century. Dr. Gregg D. Kimball will play original recordings-not digital copies-of former soldiers and discuss the amazing stories of how they came to be heard. Among these gems are Virginian Polk Miller performing "The Bonnie Blue Flag" accompanied by the Old South Quartette on an Edison cylinder recording, Oklahoma veteran Henry Gilliland on a 1922 Victor disc made just after a Confederate reunion in Richmond, and John A. Pattee of Michigan, who toured with a group of Confederate and Union veterans. Kimball's talk will also examine the echoes of the Civil War on popular recordings, and explore their meaning in the context of the Gilded Age, the Lost Cause, and Reunion. There was a nearly forty-year gap between the end of the Civil War and the dawn of the commercial recording industry. Some Civil War songs endured in American popular culture to be recorded, but, other than iconic songs such as "Dixie," most that had staying power were sentimental songs, such as "The Faded Coat of Blue" and "The Vacant Chair." These songs of Victorian sentimentality were readily recycled into country music as it emerged on record in the 1920s. Likewise, fiddle and banjo tunes shared by former Union and Confederate soldiers echoed Civil War camp life and fit well into the movement for national reconciliation and Reunion. Dr. Kimball is director of education and outreach at the Library of Virginia and plays a variety of traditional music styles on the banjo, guitar, fiddle, and melodeon. He is author of American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond (University of Georgia Press, 2000). This program begins at 6pm and ends at 7:30pm. Free parking is available in the VCU/MCV Visitors Parking Deck. The program is free for members, $5 for non-members. For questions or to register, contact Teresa Roane at 804-649-1861 x.28 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html