Oh Susanna by Stephen Foster (premiered in Pittsburgh in 1847)

I would be remiss if I fail to mention Stephen Foster while talking about American music or more appropriately its history.  We have every right to claim him as a Pittsburgher, even though many of his songs are stories of the American South.  He was born and buried in Pittsburgh. His Memorial (see photo) sits in front of the Cathedral of Learning Tower at the University of Pittsburgh; it was also designed by Charles Klauder to accompany his Cathedral of Learning.  Foster also briefly attended Washington and Jefferson College at Washington, PA, a town 20 miles away from us.

I sang Oh Susanna in my school days in Taiwan.  It is a story of “I came from Alabama” with a banjo, to “I soon will be in New Orleans” to look for his girl friend, Susanna, and that leads some to say it is a Confederate song, but it is an all American folk song in every sense.  It had its premiere in a Pittsburgh ice cream parlor in 1847.  It was written for a men’s social club of Foster, so here is Oh Susana by a Men’s choir,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqQL5JsbTq4