Keeping the Music Alive

Here in Oscar Scherer State Park on Wednesday evenings you would have an opportunity to listen to "American Music" performed by Carl and Betty Ross. Carl strums a banjo while singing and telling corny jokes while Betty keeps time with a homemade bass of sorts.  They prefer to perform in period dress in keeping with the authenticity of the times they represent. The music is all the product of American composers and artists. Stemming from the Civil War, Stephen Foster, and many of the anonymous songs we learned as children in our school music classes. The kind of songs we sang around the campfires and on long car trips of our youth. "O Susanna", "De Camptown Races", Negro spirituals, songs we may have never heard before but which are all part of our American heritage. Carl has a treasure trove of over 300 songs in his head. Songs that record the mores and values of our ancestors and describe a lifestyle long past. These are songs that can speak to all of us in all times as they are stories of love, beauty, and good plain fun.

I am not sure if my children knew the songs of which I speak and I am pretty sure that my grandchildren have very little, if any, experience of them. So if you have an opportunity to experience a bluegrass event take a minute to soak it in and by all means take the kids. And if you run into Carl and Betty playing "Old Tyme" music say hey for me.