In my performances I create an entertaining musical link to mid-nineteenth century America. To accomplish this I've chosen to play the music published between 1830 and 1865. The names and histories of the composers and performers of this music are known, as are the places they performed. Their sheet music is available for study; some of their banjos still exist; we know in detail how they played these instruments. Thus I can play music that is as close as possible to what was heard 160 years ago. Even the cut and fabric of these men's clothes can be reproduced. All this concrete information helps clear the haze of nostalgia and sentiment and allows a fascinating glimpse of our true past.

I focus on the work of the early minstrels. These are the first two generations of popular musicians who emerged between about 1830 and 1847. They devised an entirely new performance style and they wrote songs that are still known today. The music they played was a blend of African and European traditions. These were so mingled together that a new thing emerged—music in which the old world can't be found. It is funny, cheeky, and tinged with sadness —sometimes jumpy, sometimes smooth.

In the 30s Joel Sweeney (1810-1860), Bill Whitlock (1813-1878), and Dan Emmett (1815-1903) stood in circus rings and sang songs like "Ole Tare River" and "Jenny Get Yer Hoe Cake Done" while playing the tune on a banjo. Today, the singer-songwriter playing solo is everywhere. Then this was entirely new.

In 1843, New York saw Whitlock, Emmett, Frank Brower, and Dick Pelham form the Virginia Minstrels. This was a seminal event. These four played banjo, fiddle, bones, and tambourine while singing their own songs, and became a sensation. The genealogy of every rock and roll band began here. Minstrel troupes quickly proliferated. Christy's Minstrels may be the best known. The Ethiopian Serenaders is another, lead by the banjoist Cool White, the author of "Buffalo Gals."

Dan Emmett wrote many songs. Some, like "Old Dan Tucker," and "Dixie," are still heard today. Out of the hundreds of songs written and published in those days, we still hum many tunes by Stephen Foster (1826-1863), the nation's first professional songwriter. Which of Foster's songs first comes to your mind? Maybe it's "Oh! Susanna" or "Camptown Races." Both were written for performers on the minstrel stage.

These musicians were usually northern white men who performed in black burnt-cork makeup and oversize, tattered clothes in a comic burlesque of southern black slaves. Though most of their northern urban audience may not have known it, the appearance and exaggerated dialect of the minstrels bore no resemblance to the lives of actual slaves. Blackface was a theatrical mask that completely altered the identity of the performer, liberating him to parody and comment upon many aspects of American life including politics, war, economics, marriage, immigration, and race. I suggest you explore the books I've listed in my bibliographies on this website. Much is written about all this.

I do not perform in blackface. I focus on the music of the minstrels, not their theatrics. But it is worth noting that the vicious racism that is today associated with minstrelsy fully emerged after the Civil War and after the failure of Reconstruction (c.1870). Then white Americans found reason to keep African-Americans distant from the opportunities of our democracy—they didn't want any economic competition and southern landowners wanted cheap labor. But in the days of the early minstrels, the vast majority of Blacks were slaves, utterly subjugated, far away, and no threat to the northern audiences. Racism existed on the minstrel stage before the war to the extent that it was found in the rest of American life.

The songbook from which I draw contains many songs that express pathos for the plight of the slaves. Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home" may be the best known. "My Darling Nellie Gray" and "Mary Blane" are also notable. The music of the early minstrels is still edgy because of the social and political atmosphere in which it flourished.

However, my audiences find this music attractive because it is so entertaining. You will too. They love to smile and sing the little word "Doo-dah!" They are pleased with the sound of the original banjo, which is nothing like the steel-strung machine of today. They find that the unique humor and word play of the early minstrels' songs run fresh as a cool creek.