Music to cry to. It's okay.

[Bill in Oregon]

I have always been touched by Jay Ungar's "Ashokan Farewell," a recent melody that made the 19th century and the soulful spirit of "The Civil War" of Ken Burns come alive.
I ran across this version featuring Jay's daughter Molly on the violin, but with a larger suite of instruments, including a steel guitar, that just gave me chills. I love this tune. It might have been written in 1982, but I think all of my ancestors who fought and bled for the Union as well as the Confederacy would find something in its heartfelt notes to convey the immense and profound sadness of the struggle they endured -- or perished in. God rest all their souls, Blue and Gray. Our loving God forgives us all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUTMTY0 ... rt_radio=1

[Ray]

This is most entertaining !

Sad & mournfull ? To be sure but oddly, sad tunes cheer me up.

To my ear & brain I hear the melody of "learning to lean on Jesus" but that is in Ray's alternate universe where the grass is blue & the sky is green.

One thing the original version and any period soundtrack cannot get right is that the sound of steel strings (banjo, guitar, mandolin) are not authentic to the era being portrayed or documented. Steel strings came much later. This why in real life then, the volume of the fiddles and the various squeeze boxes predominated. Just one guitar or other gut-stringed instrument would have been instantly drowned-out by even the subtlest fiddler or box-squeezer. In real life, there would be at least three guitarists & the like and then they would position the fiddler or box-squeezer over on the other side of campfire to balance the noises.

Another controversial theory I have about old music is that the mandolin, despite its violin tuning similarities, was meant to be a more compact, portable alternative to a clavichord cabinet.

An example of one tune sounding much like another.....I was watching an octogenarian englisher rocker who still performs but specializes in acoustic renaissance music with his m u c h younger bride singing in busty costumes. One video he was playing a tune that sounded quite familiar, so familiar it reminded much of an '80s era contemporary gospel song. I could tell from his (ritchie blackmore) fretting on a conventional six-string made to resemble a lute that it was in a key that was beyond my skills. By dropping or raising the key a step, I was able to manage the chording. Further, by playing on just three strings (cigarbox) I was able to eke-out some of the more difficult F & B chords that I normally struggle with.

This chord progression is now part of my repertoire and the words of several hymns fit in it including old hank's classic.....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wXNerZtGTe0

[Bill in Oregon]

Nice tone from your cigar box guitar, Ray. I made one once using steel strings, but can't play so gave it away.

[piller]

Sounds good. Never met my Great Grandfather who fought in the War between the States. That music was probably similar to what he heard in his time. My Grandmother who passed while I was in my late teens was nearly deaf, and I don't know much about her musical tastes. She had musical talent according to my Dad and his family, and my Grandfather who died in a multi vehicle accident in 1958 was a violinist. He probably would have liked this.

[Ray]

Nice tone from your cigar box guitar, Ray. I made one once using steel strings, but can't play so gave it away.

Whoa.....I apologize if I gave impression that I use period correct natural strings. All my instruments save for ukes (nylon) have steel strings. A set of six gut strings costs well over $100 and silk treble & gut bass cost about $70 shipped. Pop a natural string on tuning and the single replacement cost $20 shipped ! Its the old newspaper editor in you Wilhelm that caught that paragraph about similar sounding songs eras apart out of sequence.

The song I heard on y.t. video that sounded similar to the Card-Thompson composition "El-Shaddai" popularized by Amy Grant was Blackmore Knight's treatment of the Chaucer era "tinsel in the wood". I changed the key from Dm to Em to accommodate my musical deficiencies. Blackmore Knight is Ritchie Blackmore & Candice Knight, husband & wife team.

[JimT]

Thank you Bill.

Ashokan Farewell

The sun is sinking low in the sky above Ashokan.
The pines and the willows know soon we will part.
There's a whisper in the wind of promises unspoken,
And a love that will always remain in my heart.

My thoughts will return to the sound of your laughter,
The magic of moving as one,
And a time we'll remember long ever after
The moonlight and music and dancing are done.

Will we climb the hills once more?
Will we walk the woods together?
Will I feel you holding me close once again?
Will every song we've sung stay with us forever?
Will you dance in my dreams or my arms until then?

Under the moon the mountains lie sleeping
Over the lake the stars shine.
They wonder if you and I will be keeping
The magic and music, or leave them behind.

[Old No7]

I have always been touched by Jay Ungar's "Ashokan Farewell," a recent melody that made the 19th century and the soulful spirit of "The Civil War" of Ken Burns come alive.

That was great -- thanks for sharing this Bill!

This is most entertaining !
Sad & mournfull ? To be sure but oddly, sad tunes cheer me up.

Another soundtrack I like -- from a much earlier war & timeframe is from the movie "The Last Of The Mohicans" (great movie too!), especially the track called "Promentory".

Oh! And another from a time long, long ago is the the soundtrack to "Gladiator" (great tunes on that one too).

Old No7

[Bill in Oregon]

Jim, thank you for those lyrics. I had not read them before.
The sad sweetness of the melody makes me think of the combatants on both sides growing older and looking back on the horror they went through and trying to make sense of it and find peace in their lives and hearts when PTSD hadn't been invented and all they had was family and maybe a fiddle being played softly in the background as they reflected on their experiences and nightmares by firelight.
A great great uncle on Dad's side was invalided early in the war by "ague" and pneumonia and assigned to a Union unit that guarded prisons. He died very quickly from another respiratory infection and his two brothers (First Wis. Infantry and Third Cavalry) write in their letters home to Sauk County, Wisconsin, that they hope dear George's body arrives by train on ice in shape for their parents to see his face one last time.
On Mom's side, a great-great-great uncle, Sgt. Lemuel Burks of the 27th Mississippi, took a Minie ball to his clavicle at Missionary Ridge on November 25, 1863, and seemed to come around after the initial surgery, but was transferred to a Union hospital in Nashville, where he seemed to do well and then the chills started and he quickly died of lingering infection on February 16, 1864.
I had great-great-great uncles on both sides engaged at Perryville. They may have shot at and wounded each other. Some of us are still processing the Civil War in our souls. There is just such a weight of sadness to it.

[piller]

My Great Grandfather was in the Cavalry. His Captain was Myles Keough. His Colonel was George Custer. He retired just before the 7th Cavalry went on the campaign against the Lakota people. His name was William Montgomery Wyant.

[Ray]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6mE_uKEwC ... AHAQ%3D%3D

Below is the narrative that inspired the song.....


"DEAD ANGLE" The First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Regiments will ever remember the battle of "Dead Angle," which was fought June 27th, on the Kennesaw line, near Marietta, Georgia. It was one of the hottest and longest days of the year, and one of the most desperate and determinedly resisted battles fought during the whole war. Our regiment was stationed on an angle, a little spur of the mountain, or rather promontory of a range of hills, extending far out beyond the main line of battle, and was subject to the enfilading fire of forty pieces of artillery of the Federal batteries. It seemed fun for the guns of the whole Yankee army to play upon this point. We would work hard every night to strengthen our breastworks, and the very next day they would be torn down smooth with the ground by solid shots and shells from the guns of the enemy. Even the little trees and bushes which had been left for shade, were cut down as so much stubble. For more than a week this constant firing had been kept up against this salient point. In the meantime, the skirmishing in the valley below resembled the sounds made by ten thousand wood-choppers.

Well, on the fatal morning of June 27th, the sun rose clear and cloudless, the heavens seemed made of brass, and the earth of iron, and as the sun began to mount toward the zenith, everything became quiet, and no sound was heard save a peckerwood on a neighboring tree, tapping on its old trunk, trying to find a worm for his dinner. We all knew it was but the dead calm that precedes the storm. On the distant hills we could plainly see officers dashing about hither and thither, and the Stars and Stripes moving to and fro, and we knew the Federals were making preparations for the mighty contest. We could hear but the rumbling sound of heavy guns, and the distant tread of a marching army, as a faint roar of the coming storm, which was soon to break the ominous silence with the sound of conflict, such as was scarcely ever before heard on this earth. It seemed that the archangel of Death stood and looked on with outstretched wings, while all the earth was silent, when all at once a hundred guns from the Federal line opened upon us, and for more than an hour they poured their solid and chain shot, grape and shrapnel right upon this salient point, defended by our regiment alone, when, all of a sudden, our pickets jumped into our works and reported the Yankees advancing, and almost at the same time a solid line of blue coats came up the hill. I discharged my gun, and happening to look up, there was the beautiful flag of the Stars and Stripes flaunting right in my face, and I heard John Branch, of the Rock City Guards, commanded by Captain W. D. Kelly, who were next Company H, say, "Look at that Yankee flag; shoot that fellow; snatch that flag out of his hand!" My pen is unable to describe the scene of carnage and death that ensued in the next two hours. Column after column of Federal soldiers were crowded upon that line, and by referring to the history of the war you will find they were massed in column forty columns deep; in fact, the whole force of the Yankee army was hurled against this point, but no sooner would a regiment mount our works than they were shot down or surrendered, and soon we had every "gopher hole" full of Yankee prisoners. Yet still the Yankees came. It seemed impossible to check the onslaught, but every man was true to his trust, and seemed to think that at that moment the whole responsibility of the Confederate government was rested upon his shoulders.

Talk about other battles, victories, shouts, cheers, and triumphs, but in comparison with this day's fight, all others dwarf into insignificance. The sun beaming down on our uncovered heads, the thermometer being one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and a solid line of blazing fire right from the muzzles of the Yankee guns being poured right into our very faces, singeing our hair and clothes, the hot blood of our dead and wounded spurting on us, the blinding smoke and stifling atmosphere filling our eyes and mouths, and the awful concussion causing the blood to gush out of our noses and ears, and above all, the roar of battle, made it a perfect pandemonium. Afterward I heard a soldier express himself by saying that he thought "Hell had broke loose in Georgia, sure enough." I have heard men say that if they ever killed a Yankee during the war they were not aware of it. I am satisfied that on this memorable day, every man in our regiment killed from one score to four score, yea, five score men. I mean from twenty to one hundred each. All that was necessary was to load and shoot. In fact, I will ever think that the reason they did not capture our works was the impossibility of their living men passing over the bodies of their dead. The ground was piled up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees. I learned afterwards from the burying squad that in some places they were piled up like cord wood, twelve deep. After they were time and time again beaten back, they at last were enabled to fortify a line under the crest of the hill, only thirty yards from us, and they immediately commenced to excavate the earth with the purpose of blowing up our line.

We remained here three days after the battle. In the meantime the woods had taken fire, and during the nights and days of all that time continued to burn, and at all times, every hour of day and night, you could hear the shrieks and screams of the poor fellows who were left on the field, and a stench, so sickening as to nauseate the whole of both armies, arose from the decaying bodies of the dead left lying on the field. On the third morning the Yankees raised a white flag, asked an armistice to bury their dead, not for any respect either army had for the dead, but to get rid of the sickening stench. I get sick now when I happen to think about it. Long and deep trenches were dug, and hooks made from bayonets crooked for the purpose, and all the dead were dragged and thrown pell mell into these trenches. Nothing was allowed to be taken off the dead, and finely dressed officers, with gold watch chains dangling over their vests, were thrown into the ditches. During the whole day both armies were hard at work, burying the Federal dead. Every member of the First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Regiments deserves a wreath of imperishable fame, and a warm place in the hearts of their countrymen, for their gallant and heroic valor at the battle of Dead Angle. No man distinguished himself above another. All did their duty, and the glory of one is but the glory and just tribute of the others. After we had abandoned the line, and on coming to a little stream of water, I undressed for the purpose of bathing, and after undressing found my arm all battered and bruised and bloodshot from my wrist to my shoulder, and as sore as a blister. I had shot one hundred and twenty times that day. My gun became so hot that frequently the powder would flash before I could ram home the ball, and I had frequently to exchange my gun for that of a dead comrade. Colonel H. R. Field was loading and shooting the same as any private in the ranks when he fell off the skid from which he was shooting right over my shoulder, shot through the head. I laid him down in the trench, and he said, "Well, they have got me at last, but I have killed fifteen of them; time about is fair play, I reckon." But Colonel Field was not killed—only wounded, and one side paralyzed. Captain Joe P. Lee, Captain Mack Campbell, Lieutenant T. H. Maney, and other officers of the regiment, threw rocks and beat them in their faces with sticks. The Yankees did the same. The rocks came in upon us like a perfect hail storm, and the Yankees seemed very obstinate, and in no hurry to get away from our front, and we had to keep up the firing and shooting them down in self-defense. They seemed to walk up and take death as coolly as if they were automatic or wooden men, and our boys did not shoot for the fun of the thing. It was, verily, a life and death grapple, and the least flicker on our part, would have been sure death to all. We could not be reinforced on account of our position, and we had to stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder. When the Yankees fell back, and the firing ceased, I never saw so many broken down and exhausted men in my life. I was as sick as a horse, and as wet with blood and sweat as I could be, and many of our men were vomiting with excessive fatigue, over-exhaustion, and sunstroke; our tongues were parched and cracked for water, and our faces blackened with powder and smoke, and our dead and wounded were piled indiscriminately in the trenches. There was not a single man in the company who was not wounded, or had holes shot through his hat and clothing. Captain Beasley was killed, and nearly all his company killed and wounded. The Rock City Guards were almost piled in heaps and so was our company. Captain Joe P. Lee was badly wounded. Poor Walter Hood and Jim Brandon were lying there among us, while their spirits were in heaven; also, William A. Hughes, my old mess-mate and friend, who had clerked with me for S. F. & J. M. Mayes, and who had slept with me for lo! these many years, and a boy who loved me more than any other person on earth has ever done. I had just discharged the contents of my gun into the bosoms of two men, one right behind the other, killing them both, and was re-loading, when a Yankee rushed upon me, having me at a disadvantage, and said, "You have killed my two brothers, and now I've got you." Everything I had ever done rushed through my mind. I heard the roar, and felt the flash of fire, and saw my more than friend, William A. Hughes, grab the muzzle of the gun, receiving the whole contents in his hand and arm, and mortally wounding him. Reader, he died for me. In saving my life, he lost his own. When the infirmary corps carried him off, all mutilated and bleeding he told them to give me "Florence Fleming" (that was the name of his gun, which he had put on it in silver letters), and to give me his blanket and clothing. He gave his life for me, and everything that he had. It was the last time that I ever saw him, but I know that away up yonder, beyond the clouds, blackness, tempest and night, and away above the blue vault of heaven, where the stars keep their ceaseless vigils, away up yonder in the golden city of the New Jerusalem, where God and Jesus Christ, our Savior, ever reign, we will sometime meet at the marriage supper of the Son of God, who gave His life for the redemption of the whole world.

For several nights they made attacks upon our lines, but in every attempt, they were driven back with great slaughter. They would ignite the tape of bomb and throw them over in our lines, but, if the shell did not immediately explode, they were thrown back. They had a little shell called hand grenade, but they would either stop short of us, or go over our heads, and were harmless.

General Joseph E. Johnston sent us a couple of chevaux-de-frise. When they came, a detail of three men had to roll them over the works. Those three men were heroes. Their names were Edmund Brandon, T. C. Dornin, and Arnold Zellner. Although it was a solemn occasion, every one of us was convulsed with laughter at the ridiculous appearance and actions of the detail. Every one of them made their wills and said their prayers truthfully and honestly, before they undertook the task. I laugh now every time I think of the ridiculous appearance of the detail, but to them it was no laughing matter. I will say that they were men who feared not, nor faltered in their duty. They were men, and today deserve the thanks of the people of the South.

That night about midnight, an alarm was given that the Yankees were advancing. They would only have to run about twenty yards before they would be in our works. We were ordered to "shoot." Every man was hallooing at the top of his voice, "Shoot, shoot, tee, shoot, shootee." On the alarm, both the Confederate and Federal lines opened, with both small arms and artillery, and it seemed that the very heavens and earth were in a grand conflagration, as they will be at the final judgment, after the resurrection. I have since learned that this was a false alarm, and that no attack had been meditated. Previous to the day of attack, the soldiers had cut down all the trees in our immediate front, throwing the tops down hill and sharpening the limbs of the same, thus making, as we thought, an impenetrable abattis of vines and limbs locked together; but nothing stopped or could stop the advance of the Yankee line, but the hot shot and cold steel that we poured into their faces from under our head-logs. One of the most shameful and cowardly acts of Yankee treachery was committed there that I ever remember to have seen. A wounded Yankee was lying right outside of our works, and begging most piteously for water, when a member of the railroad company (his name was Hog Johnson, and the very man who stood videt with Theodore Sloan and I at the battle of Missionary Ridge, and who killed the three Yankees, one night, from Fort Horsley), got a canteen of water, and gave the dying Yankee a drink, and as he started back, he was killed dead in his tracks by a treacherous Yankee hid behind a tree. It matters not, for somewhere in God's Holy Word, which cannot lie, He says that "He that giveth a cup of cold water in my name, shall not lose his reward." And I have no doubt, reader, in my own mind, that the poor fellow is reaping his reward in Emanuel's land with the good and just. In every instance where we tried to assist their wounded, our men were killed or wounded. A poor wounded and dying boy, not more than sixteen years of age, asked permission to crawl over our works, and when he had crawled to the top, and just as Blair Webster and I reached up to help the poor fellow, he, the Yankee, was killed by his own men. In fact, I have ever thought that is why the slaughter was so great in our front, that nearly, if not as many, Yankees were killed by their own men as by us. The brave ones, who tried to storm and carry our works, were simply between two fires. It is a singular fanaticism, and curious fact, that enters the mind of a soldier, that it is a grand and glorious death to die on a victorious battlefield.

One morning the Sixth and Ninth Regiments came to our assistance—not to relieve us—but only to assist us, and every member of our regiment—First and Twenty-seventh—got as mad as a "wet hen." They felt almost insulted, and I believe we would soon have been in a free fight, had they not been ordered back. As soon as they came up every one of us began to say, "Go back! go back! we can hold this place, and by the eternal God we are not going to leave it." General Johnston came there to look at the position, and told us that a transverse line was about one hundred yards in our rear, and should they come on us too heavy to fall back to that line, when almost every one of us said, "You go back and look at other lines, this place is safe, and can never be taken." And then when they had dug a tunnel under us to blow us up, we laughed, yea, even rejoiced, at the fact of soon being blown sky high. Yet, not a single man was willing to leave his post. When old Joe sent us the two chevaux-de- frise, and kept on sending us water, and rations, and whisky, and tobacco, and word to hold our line, we would invariably send word back to rest easy, and that all is well at Dead Angle. I have ever thought that is one reason why General Johnston fell back from this Kennesaw line, and I will say today, in 1882, that while we appreciated his sympathies and kindness toward us, yet we did not think hard of old Joe for having so little confidence in us at that time. A perfect hail of minnie balls was being continually poured into our head-logs the whole time we remained here. The Yankees would hold up small looking-glasses, so that our strength and breastworks could be seen in the reflection in the glass; and they also had small mirrors on the butts of their guns, so arranged that they could hight up the barrels of their guns by looking through these glasses, while they themselves would not be exposed to our fire, and they kept up this continual firing day and night, whether they could see us or not. Sometimes a glancing shot from our head-logs would wound some one. But I cannot describe it as I would wish.

I would be pleased to mention the name of every soldier, not only of Company H alone, but every man in the First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Consolidated Regiments on this occasion, but I cannot now remember their names, and will not mention any one in particular, fearing to do injustice to some whom I might inadvertently omit. Every man and every company did their duty. Company G, commanded by Captain Mack Campbell, stood side by side with us on this occasion, as they ever had during the whole war. But soldiers of the First and Twenty-seventh Regiments, it is with a feeling of pride and satisfaction to me, today, that I was associated with so many noble and brave men, and who were subsequently complimented by Jeff Davis, then President of the Confederate States of America, in person, who said, "That every member of our regiment was fit to be a captain"—his very words. I mention Captain W. C. Flournoy, of Company K, the Martin Guards; Captain Ledbetter, of the Rutherford Rifles; Captains Kelly and Steele, of the Rock City Guards, and Captain Adkisson, of the Williamson Grays, and Captain Fulcher, and other names of brave and heroic men, some of whom live today, but many have crossed the dark river and are "resting under the shade of the trees" on the other shore, waiting and watching for us, who are left to do justice to their memory and our cause, and when we old Rebels have accomplished God's purpose on earth, we, too, will be called to give an account of our battles, struggles, and triumphs.

[Ray]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o-iLlBtsi ... AHAQ%3D%3D

In a televised interview, Townes Van Zandt claimed that this song came to him in a fit of heroin withdrawal and lack of vodka d.t.-s from a hallucination of the haint of a Confederate who languished paralyzed beneath a pile of dead and dying at the peach orchard/bloody pond of shiloh/pittsburg landing. The ghost thought all he needed to escape from his predicament was "flying shoes".....

And the somewhat more elaborately produced studio version.....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nv_Ej3_nG ... AHAQ%3D%3D

What I like about the bare live version at the top of this reply is you can hear that trademark t.v.z. technique of bouncing the Em back and forth off of the Am. This gives a sombre "bum-bum-bump" sound that any guitarist, even a beginner like me can accomplish.

And my feeble attempt at a civil war themed song. It could have really used a capo clamped on the second fret so I don't sound so like smiley b. in character as frogg millhouse.....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mg_9pTojhDo

And the real thing.....Levon at his best !

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDbnwQlC ... AHAQ%3D%3D