by Kevin T McEneaney
Kudos to The Millbrook Library for hosting Lost Radio Rounders in a free concert in the library last Saturday. Based in Albany, they are a folk music quartet with a repertoire spanning 250 years of American music. The band performed to a capacity audience at the library, which was commemorating 250 years of American Independence. The title of the concert was 250 Years of Songs and Stories.
They opened with “The Times They Are A-Changing” by Bob Dylan. Then they charted several different strains of popular folk music over the centuries. The early half of the ninety-minute concert featured predominantly Irish tunes adapted to American circumstances.
Former college teacher Tom Lindsay has taught American History and American Music History. He still has an ardent, mellow voice that ranges high and low with contagious enthusiasm. Michael Eck, on period banjo, is a national music critic and voter in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Paul “Bowtie” Jossman, on guitar, is the founder of many folk music groups. He is an inductee to the Albany Thomas Edison Hall of Fame. They were joined by guest super-guitarist Stephen Clyde Daniels, who has performed in over forty bands.
They performed a series of early Americana, beginning with the origin of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” a poem composed by Francis Scott Key. The verses were set to a tune of the London Anacreon Society, which opened their meetings with a bawdy drinking song. The Greek poet Anacreon was famous for composing hundreds of drinking songs. (Anacreon also influenced many of Thomas Moore’s famous drawing-room Irish Melodies.)
They moved forward in time with vivid samples from the War of 1812 to the Civil War, Suffrage Movement, Southern crop-sharer songs, Stephen Foster (the founder of American music), Great Depression, Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Movement, and the near-present, concluding with a song about the Hudson River by local folksong legend Pete Seeger. For the Ain’t Mis-Behaving musical, Bob Button from the Hammerhead Horns band joined with his trumpet.
This concert offered a kaleidoscopic musical history, showing how music evolved in this country. Performances by players were outstanding! Lost Radio Rounders have over 200 YouTube recordings available. They can be contacted @ lostradiorounders.com.
The Millbrook Library provided a marvelous educational and aesthetic treat for the local population!