The Erie Canal Sings: A Musical History of New York's Grand Waterway

by Bill Hullfish, Dave Ruch (With)

Overview

Life working along the banks of the Erie Canal is preserved in the songs of America's rich musical history. Thomas Allen's "Low Bridge, Everybody Down" has achieved iconic status in the American songbook, but its true story has never been told until now. Erie songs such as "The E-ri-e Is a-Risin'" would transform into "The C&O Is a-Risin'" as the song culture spread among a network of other canals, including the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Pennsylvania Main Line. As motors replaced mules and railroads emerged, the canal song tradition continued on Broadway stages and in folk music recordings. Author Bill Hullfish takes readers on a musical journey along New York's historic Erie Canal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467142090
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	06/17/2019
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	1,050,444
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Dr. William Hullfish is a life member of the American Canal Society. He has published articles in American Canals and is the author of The Canaller's Songbook (American Canal and Transportation Center). Bill has toured under a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts with the Golden Eagle String Band and played at the World Canal Conference (Mystic Seaport, Waterloo Village, New York), the Erie Canal Museum, the Great Lakes Symposium (SUNY Oswego), Canal Jam 2015 (Allegheny Portage Railroad Historic Site, (Gallitzin, Pennsylvania) and canal festivals all over New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Foreword George Ward 7

Preface 9

Acknowledgements 15

I In the Beginning

1 Musical Diaries 19

2 The Canal Era 35

II America's Canal Song

3 "Low Bridge, Everybody Down" 51

4 The Man behind the Song 61

5 Who Put the "Buff" in Buffalo? 73

III The Life of a Canaller

6 Celebration 85

7 Canallers at Work and Play 93

8 The Raging Canal 126

9 Superstition 141

10 The Minstrel Show Comes to Town 152

IV An Era has Ended but the Melody Lingers On

11 The Canal Comes to the Stage 163

12 From Buffalo to Troy 170

13 The Singing Continued 180

Appendix A "The Rhyme of the Old Canal" 193

Appendix B "Low Bridge, Everybody Down" (or "Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal") 199

Appendix C "The Aged Pilot Man" 201

Notes 207

Bibliography 219

Index 227

About the Author and Contributor 237