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Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture
Stephen Foster (1826–1864) was America's first great songwriter and the first to earn his living solely through his music. He composed some 200 songs, including such classics as "Oh! Susanna,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," "Old Folks at Home (Way down upon the Swanee River),” and "Camptown Races (Doo-dah! Doo-dah!).” He virtually invented popular music as we recognize it to this day, yet he died at age thirty-seven, a forgotten and nearly penniless alcoholic on the Bowery. The author reveals Foster's contradictory life while disclosing how the dynamics of nineteenth-century industrialization, westward expansion, the Gold Rush, slavery, and the Civil War infused his music, and how that music influenced popular culture.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 23, 2020
Perhaps Mr. Emerson summarized the entire era early in his book when he wrote: "Any career in music was by definition disreputable in a society that venerated the Protestant work ethic, the virtues of practicality and profitability. Music was for women and children; men outgrew it. As anything other than a hobby, music was not just ungentlemanly, it was unmanly." (p. 99)
Foster was ahead of his time as pre-Civil War American society was more about Carnegie and Vanderbilt; robber barons & 'making it'; and of course, slavery. Minstrel shows were not only a legitimate form of entertainment, they were probably the most popular form of entertainment, north or south. Much of Foster's early work was written in dialect, and it is really terrible. The 2nd verse of 'Oh! Susanna' goes:
"I jump'd aboard the telegraph
And trabbled down de ribber,
De lectrick fluid magnified,
And kill'd five hundred Nigga.
De bulgine bust and de hoss ran off,
I really thought I'd die;
I shut my eyes to hold my bref
Susanna don't you cry."
Yikes! That's pretty terrible. And there's more. Eventually, Foster stopped writing dialect and overtly racist stuff, but it was the style of the day. Yes, he gave up minstrel stuff, but Emerson makes a good case that Foster was certainly not an abolitionist nor cared about Black folks in general.
Emerson's book is well researched, but is frankly not terribly compelling. He expects you to have a pretty good working knowledge of Foster's work. The era is also stiffly described. Going from paddlewheelers to railroads was momentous, and just an example of how rapidly things were changing. But instead of spending much time on PT Barnum, we get a lot of background on Foster's family. 3.5 stars.
Foster was ahead of his time as pre-Civil War American society was more about Carnegie and Vanderbilt; robber barons & 'making it'; and of course, slavery. Minstrel shows were not only a legitimate form of entertainment, they were probably the most popular form of entertainment, north or south. Much of Foster's early work was written in dialect, and it is really terrible. The 2nd verse of 'Oh! Susanna' goes:
"I jump'd aboard the telegraph
And trabbled down de ribber,
De lectrick fluid magnified,
And kill'd five hundred Nigga.
De bulgine bust and de hoss ran off,
I really thought I'd die;
I shut my eyes to hold my bref
Susanna don't you cry."
Yikes! That's pretty terrible. And there's more. Eventually, Foster stopped writing dialect and overtly racist stuff, but it was the style of the day. Yes, he gave up minstrel stuff, but Emerson makes a good case that Foster was certainly not an abolitionist nor cared about Black folks in general.
Emerson's book is well researched, but is frankly not terribly compelling. He expects you to have a pretty good working knowledge of Foster's work. The era is also stiffly described. Going from paddlewheelers to railroads was momentous, and just an example of how rapidly things were changing. But instead of spending much time on PT Barnum, we get a lot of background on Foster's family. 3.5 stars.
November 29, 2016
Very, very dry. But that can be forgivable for a biography.
Still, I was troubled that I didn't find any information about the possibility that Foster stole many of "his" songs, or parts of them, from other musicians, particularly black musicians.
Still, I was troubled that I didn't find any information about the possibility that Foster stole many of "his" songs, or parts of them, from other musicians, particularly black musicians.
August 4, 2021
This book combines biography with cultural history. It's an academic book, but accessible to the general reader (me, for example). I learned a lot about Stephen Foster and the development of popular music in the 19th century.
February 2, 2024
The prose doesn't bowl you over, but I think this does an able job of grappling with Foster's legacy and his work, understanding the merit while also understanding the complicated (read: disgusting) backdrop surrounding all of it. Both a biography and a history of minstrelsy.
March 16, 2021
Oh it's long, and we don't know enough about his life.
Want to read
August 22, 2022I’m putting this in the xenochrony shelf because the day I’m looking at it happens to be the anniversary of its publication date.
August 5, 2016
This book more or less concludes a self study I've been on for the past week and a half of the American minstrel show. I was fascinated with Foster well before minstrelsy, and I've been wanting to read this book for a while. I live in Florida, so of course "Old Folks as Home" is our state song. My family went to the Stephen Foster Folk Center and Museum on the Suwannee river and from that moment on I became fascinated with him. I realized how vital he was to American pop culture, and how he is as deeply ingrained in our conscious as Twain, baseball, jazz, etc. What is shocking is that while any American can whistle or sing the first lines of at least three Foster songs, nobody knows who he is. I always cringe when I see "Oh Susanna!" or "Camptown Races" referred to as "folk" music. Like they're somehow of the tradition of a song that gets passed down through the generations and has no named author. These were songs written by a professional songwriter for public entertainment, and not just some tune like "Wabash Cannonball" that came out of a culture without being really "written." To say Foster's songs are folk songs would be like saying Johnny Cash's songs were folk songs. Sure they sounded like folk music and old country, but does that qualify them to be among real "folk" songs? It makes no sense.
Foster had his obsessions and fascinations just like any good writer, and his boil down to two main things. Longing for de old plantation, and dying/dead people. Foster can be at his very best with songs including this theme, but it's astounding just how many he wrote about literally the exact same thing. Comparisons can be made with Brian Wilson/the Beach Boys. Foster, who never saw the South he almost exclusively wrote about, and Wilson, who never surfed. Also comparable is the pressure to stick to a formula to stay lucrative. Foster appeared to want to distance himself from minstrel music, but you can easily tell from looking at a few of his royalty checks what made the most money. Foster also suffered from a horrendous business sense, giving away "Oh Susanna" for free and not taking credit for "Old Folks at Home" (which he did regret and attempted to fix, unfortunately E.P. Christy wouldn't give him the recognition he deserved).
While this book does contain good information on the subject, I found it to be more or less dry for the majority of the time. Foster’s life wasn’t the most eventful, and frequently the author speaks more about the times and music which I had already read a good deal about before coming to this work. Not only that, but in comparisons to previous books I’ve read concerning music of the time and especially minstrelsy, this book just seemed noticeably more lackluster in its writing. “Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America” by Robert C. Toll was a much better treatment of the music and the times with all the information about Foster you really need. On a side note, “Darkest America” is a fantastic look at minstrelsy and its effect on modern culture that those interested in the subject simply must read.
Foster had his obsessions and fascinations just like any good writer, and his boil down to two main things. Longing for de old plantation, and dying/dead people. Foster can be at his very best with songs including this theme, but it's astounding just how many he wrote about literally the exact same thing. Comparisons can be made with Brian Wilson/the Beach Boys. Foster, who never saw the South he almost exclusively wrote about, and Wilson, who never surfed. Also comparable is the pressure to stick to a formula to stay lucrative. Foster appeared to want to distance himself from minstrel music, but you can easily tell from looking at a few of his royalty checks what made the most money. Foster also suffered from a horrendous business sense, giving away "Oh Susanna" for free and not taking credit for "Old Folks at Home" (which he did regret and attempted to fix, unfortunately E.P. Christy wouldn't give him the recognition he deserved).
While this book does contain good information on the subject, I found it to be more or less dry for the majority of the time. Foster’s life wasn’t the most eventful, and frequently the author speaks more about the times and music which I had already read a good deal about before coming to this work. Not only that, but in comparisons to previous books I’ve read concerning music of the time and especially minstrelsy, this book just seemed noticeably more lackluster in its writing. “Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America” by Robert C. Toll was a much better treatment of the music and the times with all the information about Foster you really need. On a side note, “Darkest America” is a fantastic look at minstrelsy and its effect on modern culture that those interested in the subject simply must read.
October 25, 2016
Foster is definitely one the most prominent songwriters in American history, and was one of the first people to support himself through the sale of sheet music, although some bad deals made his financial situation rather unsteady. His songs included “Oh! Susanna,” “Camptown Races,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and the one people know as “Way Down on the Swanee River” that’s actually called “Old Folks at Home.” The author is stuck with addressing the racism in many of Foster’s songs. His earliest popular works were minstrel songs written in dialect to be performed in blackface; and while he later tried to get away from that, the need for money kept him coming back to it. I’m sure American children today still know “Oh! Susanna,” but they likely don’t know the second verse with its lines, “I jumped aboard the telegraph and traveled down the river/Electric fluid magnified, and killed five hundred”…well, you can probably guess the next word. Emerson suggests that Foster eventually became more sympathetic to black Americans and less racist than others in the same field. While he was from Pittsburgh, his family was pretty staunchly Democrat at a time when that meant pro-slavery. It seems like every modern biographer has to make a case for how any beloved historical figure who did racist work wasn’t AS racist as they could have been, which might not be saying all that much. Then again, you can’t totally blame people for sharing the same prejudices as the society in which they were raised.
March 18, 2016
"Doo-dah!" is a look at an enigmatic composer whose legacy is pervasive if not a little obscured by time and cultural favor. Before ordering the book, I was actually worried about how much information I could expect to find on Stephen Foster's life. Turns out, it's pretty comprehensive, providing not only political and racial context of the 19th century, but context of modern popular music and Foster's influence. At the same time, it's lucid and engaging. Indulging in the details of Foster's life was refreshing; after reading tales of conquest in North American and United States history, stories of the lives of powerful statesmen and men of industry, here, finally, is a different kind of American. And, frankly, a more relatable man. Stephen Foster celebrated individualism through music. He was quietly autonomous, and though he was commercial, he was also intriguing and unpredictable. He struggled with over-indulgence and probably carried an overwhelming sense of responsibility and anxiety because of his family's struggles. I don't want to say much more for fear of psycho-analyzing him, but many of these are things that any young man or woman interested in creating profitable art in modern society can relate to. Here's a story of one guy from Pittsburgh who forged a unique path, made a little money off it but had a big impact.
July 31, 2012
i don't actually finish many books, and i struggled with this book. i've been reading it for two years. since i knew how the story ended (badly, with a wasting sadness), i didn't want to finish it. an unthinking racist, a confused, almost doddering husband and breadwinner (he may have only had sex with his wife once, on their wedding night), Stephen Foster drank himself to death amidst the squalor of the Bowery, a failed artist who seemed more comfortable dreaming than awake.
and yet, his music endures. Oh Susannah, Hard Times Come Again No More, Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair (written for his wife), Beautiful Dreamer --- wonderful songs with wonderful melodies. Foster, who scorned the black man, did much to popularize black vernacular music, and black music has dominated American popular music ever since.
while the biography sketches the life, it never soars. i guess i wanted it to soar. Mr. Emerson comes across as an extremely competent journeyman. Well, at least in the afterword he recommends a biography of Edgar Allen Poe. so that's next.
and yet, his music endures. Oh Susannah, Hard Times Come Again No More, Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair (written for his wife), Beautiful Dreamer --- wonderful songs with wonderful melodies. Foster, who scorned the black man, did much to popularize black vernacular music, and black music has dominated American popular music ever since.
while the biography sketches the life, it never soars. i guess i wanted it to soar. Mr. Emerson comes across as an extremely competent journeyman. Well, at least in the afterword he recommends a biography of Edgar Allen Poe. so that's next.
March 5, 2016
stephen foster's arguably the most important person from pittsburgh (andy warhol and robert bork are close, i guess), but there's only so much you can say about him. emerson says it here, but since there's less primary source quotations than in prior books (which were much harder to read!), there's just not much to go on. stephen was from a famous family, kinda fell on hard times, bounced around a bit, wrote some of the most beautiful (and derivative! of course derivative!) music in american history, lost himself to drink, died. i've visited his grave in the allegheny cemetery a couple of times.
emerson still doesn't answer the big question: what if you wrote the soundtrack to american life--not necessarily good music, but inescapable--and nobody gave a shit? foster, in that regard, was like the gawker media clickbait writer who churns out viral pieces, some of which even advance the conversation, but pulls in 25k a year.
emerson still doesn't answer the big question: what if you wrote the soundtrack to american life--not necessarily good music, but inescapable--and nobody gave a shit? foster, in that regard, was like the gawker media clickbait writer who churns out viral pieces, some of which even advance the conversation, but pulls in 25k a year.
January 8, 2018
Biographical survey of Steven Foster's life and of popular culture through Foster's songs. (See also audio CD "Beautiful Dreamer" as media listening companion). He is sometimes called America's first pop song writer. Although the racism of blackface/minstrelsy were components of Foster's times and thus his songs, the author compares Foster's music to that of other performers drawing on black music and style, such as Vanilla Ice and Elvis. Familiar tunes: "Oh, Suzanna" (1848), Camptown Races (the Doo-Dah! of the title - 1847), Hard Times Come Again No More (1855), "Beautiful Dreamer (1862).
December 25, 2010
Delightful meandering through the life of Foster, his family and contemporaries, and more context than I expected about what was going on in the country and how this affected the popular music of the day. I picked it up out of idle curiosity; I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. (I was tidying up my bookshelves and ran across this title. Before adding it to the give-away pile, I had a sneaking suspicion that I hadn't added it yet to my goodreads list. Glad I checked!)
October 18, 2007
Interesting biography of perhaps the first American popular song writer. It's surprising how many of his songs survive today. He made a living off of writing songs, not performing them. It's also a revealing picture of the US right before the Civil War.
March 19, 2009
the history of black face; a great history of "antebellum" western pennsylvania, etc
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews