Maggie's Farm

Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) wrote "Oh, Susanna," "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)," "De Camptown Races," "Old Black Joe," "Beautiful Dreamer," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair," "Hard Times," - and lots more.

Where would the American songbook be without him? Nowhere.

Here's his Wikipedia listing. It's the usual: made pennies from his songs, died drunk and alone in New York City. Only visited the deep South briefly, once, on his honeymoon.

A list of his songs here.

Photos of his German piano teacher in Pittsburgh, his first guitar, and the first piano he played, here.

Why the Swanee River? It fit the meter and the feeling. Here's "Old Folks at Home," a true heart-breaker of a sentimental popular song, with a lovely simple tune, as Foster wrote it in NYC for the minstrel shows.

And here's Dylan with Foster's Hard Times: