Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life". When he died in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America."
Peter Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene," which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, workers' rights, and environmental causes.
Ruth Crawford Seeger was an American composer and folk music specialist. Her music was a prominent exponent of the emerging modernist aesthetic and she became a central member of a group of American composers known as the "ultramoderns". Though she composed primarily during the 1920s and 1930s, Seeger turned towards studies on folk music from the late 1930s until her death. Her music influenced later composers, particularly Elliott Carter.
Charles Louis Seeger Jr. was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919–2014), Peggy Seeger, and Mike Seeger (1933–2009); and brother of the World War I poet Alan Seeger (1888–1916) and children's author and educator Elizabeth Seeger (1889-1973).
Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet (1931) is "regarded as one of the finest modernist works of the genre". It was funded by the Guggenheim Foundation and written in the spring of 1931, during Crawford's time in Berlin. It was first published in the New Music Edition in January 1941.
"She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" is a traditional folk song often categorized as children's music. The song is derived from the Christian spiritual known as "When the Chariot Comes". It has been assigned the number 4204 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
"Midnight Special" is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South. The song refers to the passenger train Midnight Special and its "ever-loving light."
"The Moonshiner" is a folk song with unknown origins. In Ireland and America, it is sung with similar lyrics but different melodies. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 4301.
"Chinaman, Laundryman" is a song composed by Ruth Crawford Seeger. The song depicts the exploitation of an immigrant Chinese laundry worker.
"Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" is a folk song that became influential during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It is based on the traditional song, "Gospel Plow," also known as "Hold On," "Keep Your Hand on the Plow," and various permutations thereof.
The Composers String Quartet was a string quartet best known for performances of new works by contemporary composers, including quartets by Elliott Carter and Ruth Crawford Seeger. Carter's Fourth Quartet was dedicated to the Composers Quartet, who premiered the work in 1986. The group has performed quartets by more than 60 American composers, and has toured abroad extensively.
Carl Sandburg Bibliography
Richard Moritz Buhlig was an American pianist.
"Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner was an American early country and folk music performer and singer from Dillsboro, North Carolina. She won much praise for her work with the fiddle and banjo. In 1924, accompanied by guitarist Eva Davis, she traveled to New York City and recorded about a dozen songs for Columbia Records. The recordings are also notable for being the first use of a 5-string banjo on a recording. She was a yearly staple at Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Mountain Dance and Folk Festival from 1928 until shortly before her death.
"Poor Paddy Works on the Railway" is a popular Irish folk and American folk song. Historically, it was often sung as a sea shanty. The song portrays an Irish worker working on a railroad.
"Sipping Cider Through a Straw" is a folk song of uncertain origin. A minstrel song titled "Sucking Cider Thro' a Straw", with words and music attributed to W. Freear, was published in 1894 by White-Smith in the United States; this composition may be the origin of the folk song, or may owe its own origin to the folk song.
Carol J. Oja is a musicologist and scholar of American Studies.
I Ride an Old Paint is a traditional American cowboy song, collected and published in 1927 by Carl Sandburg in his American Songbag.
The Colorado Trail is a traditional American cowboy song, collected and published in 1927 by Carl Sandburg in his American Songbag. Sandburg says that he learned the song from Dr. T. L. Chapman, of Duluth, Minnesota, who heard it from a badly injured cowboy being treated in his hospital. The cowboy sang it, and many others, to an audience of patients in his ward.
Djane Lavoie-Herz (1889–1982) was a Canadian pianist and teacher. She studied in Montreal with Alfred La Liberté and then went to Europe where she studied in London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels. Through Scriabin’s influence, Herz became interested in Theosophy, a religious movement. The ideas of theosophy were deeply intertwined with Scriabin’s compositions, in which dissonant harmony was seen as spiritual.
