THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September, 9, 1994 TAG: 9409070175
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
EXPECT THE HITS of the '60s the 1860s, that is.
When Joe Ayers and his Tuckahoe Social Orchestra performs its concert at 7 p.m. Saturday during the second annual Chesapeake Civil War Days, don't expect martial music, drum rolls or any kind of When-Johnny-Comes-Marching-Home patriotic Confederate or Federal songs.
Ayers said his group will perform the pop ``hits'' of the day, songs mainly written in the 1850s music.
``In these re-enactments and other Civil War festivals, the focus is usually on the military, the hardware, uniforms and the tactics,'' Ayers said. ``Through our music, we give people a picture of civilian life during these times and what songs the soldiers took with them when they marched off to war.''
The Tuckahoe Social Orchestra is led by the 43-year-old Ayers, a historian, lecturer, musician, musicologist, classical guitarist, blues expert, performing and recording artist and author. He has made several recordings of early American music, including several volumes of 19th century banjo classics. He appeared in the feature films ``Gettysburg'' and ``Sommersby,'' in the NBC special ``Gore Vidal's Lincoln'' and in National Geographic and Discovery Channel television specials.
The Tuckahoe Social Orchestra, based in Bremo Bluff in Fluvanna County, is made up of Ayers' children: 25-year-old twins Eric and Chris; Heather, 23; Gabriel, 17; and Elizabeth, 14, who play an array of instruments, including guitar, banjo, trumpet, baritone horn, trombone, tuba, recorder, clarinet, tambourine and even bones.
Just as U.S. soldiers in Vietnam listened to the pop music of the day, including songs by the Doors, Jimi Hendrix or Motown, so the boys in blue and gray listened to popular musical fare of the times.
The men on both sides listened to songs that were recognized and loved thanks to the huge popularity of minstrel shows throughout the country and the print explosion caused by the invention of the rotary press in 1846.
``The rotary press totally revolutionized printing,'' Ayers said. ``The volume of printed music and everything else exploded.''
Ayers said mid-19th century sheet music featured the big hits of the day, which mainly came from the much maligned and sometimes misunderstood minstrel shows, in which performers donned blackface, outrageous costumes and performed songs rooted in African-American music styles.
For Saturday's concert, Ayers said the Tuckahoe Social Orchestra will offer some parlor music written by Stephen Foster, instrumental dance music and those minstrel show tunes.
``The predecessor to the TV in the den was the piano or pump organ in the parlor,'' Ayers said. ``Before the advent of recordings if you wanted to hear music you either had to know how to play it yourself or be near a live warm body who played it. People would visit each other and sit in the parlor while music and songs were being performed. Even the poorest of families or homes at least had a squeeze box, small accordion or guitar.''
But the most popular form of entertainment that spawned the hits of the day were the minstrel shows, Ayers said. It's a form he's researched and studied for years.
There was a repugnant aspect to the minstrel shows, Ayers said. They featured white men in blackface, usually cork ash, wearing either flashy clothes of the plantation dandy or the torn, disheveled garb of the shuffling field hand. The dialects were exaggerated as were the dances and on-stage histrionics.
But just as one shouldn't judge Mark Twain's ``Huckleberry Finn'' because of its liberal use of the pejorative term for blacks, one shouldn't dismiss the minstrel shows because of its stage image. Look beyond the black ashen faces, he said.
``The black-faced minstrel has become a taboo subject,'' Ayers said. ``But in those days it was the theatrical entertainment of the day, good or bad. In fact, the style originated not in the deep South but rather in Boston and New York in the 1840s. Minstrel music became the pop music of the times and it was this music that the young men on both sides of the Civil War brought with them.''
He said there is no better example of the minstrel shows' far-ranging popularity than the song ``Dixie,'' which many today think was written in the South.
``One of the most popular minstrel shows in New York City was Bryant's Minstrels, run by two Irishmen, Dan and Jerry Bryant,'' he said. ``Each show always ended with a `walkaround,' when the show's cast would assemble on stage to dance, roam around and sing, sort of the way they do at the end of `Saturday Night Live,' when the sax man wails away while the cast chats, dances and talks to the audience. The most famous of these walkarounds was a waltz tune, which eventually became `Dixie.' It was written by a man from Ohio, Daniel Decatur Emmitt.
``The tune represented the complete fusion of many aspects of mid-19th century American society, all rolled into one: a man from Ohio writes a song about a Southern plantation for a New York City minstrel show owned by two Irishmen and the song is eventually performed in Montgomery, Ala., for Jefferson Davis' inauguration.''
Ayers said the music performed at these shows was rooted in African-American music traditions. It was generally upbeat, although shows in the 1850s featured many more sentimental ballads.
He said J.E.B. Stuart, Lee's top cavalry officer, loved minstrel show music and always made sure there was some kind of pick-up string music band performing on a wooden stage near his headquarters.
``He was a typical 29-year-old man of his time,'' Ayers said, ``who was into the pop music of his day.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by AUBREY WILEY
Joe Ayers, with banjo, leads the Tuckahoe Social Orchestra, which
will perform Saturday during the second annual Chesapeake Civil War
Days.
by CNB