It’s hard to overstate just what an extraordinary musical collection Divided & United, The Songs Of The Civil War is. The United States has been marking the 150th anniversary of its Civil War for the past three years. And in many ways the country remains divided along similar geographic and sectarian lines as led to that war. This musical project, which presents the songs that were sung by soldiers and civilians all over the country on both sides of the war, indeed shines a light on those thoughts and feelings that divided and united Americans then and continue to do so now.
This is a big set, two CDs with a total of 32 songs, lasting a little more than two hours. And it is literally packed with amazing performances by musicians who represent a wide range of today’s musical landscape – from mainstream country (Angel Snow, Ashley Monroe, Lee Ann Womack, Jamey Johnson) to former punk singer-songwriter (John Doe), old-time Appalachian and bluegrass (Ralph Stanley, Norman and Nancy Blake, Del McCoury) to post-modern pop (Joe Henry, Noah Pikelny, Chris Thile), classic country (Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Jack Clement) and classic rock (Taj Mahal, Chris Hillman) to alt-country (Steve Earle) alt-folk (AA Bondy, Pokey LaFarge) and more.
The best thing is the songs themselves. Executive producer Randall Poster is superb at collecting music for projects such as movies and television series. He has worked on Wes Anderson films including “Moonrise Kingdom” and produces the music for the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire,” and says he saw this project as similar.
“When I put these collections together, I assemble them like I do a movie soundtrack and feel like I’m telling a story. On this record, you get a sense of, ‘Oh my goodness, here’s the story of the Civil War.’ ”
Many of these songs remain well known, although not all who know them may realize their connection to the Civil War. There is of course “Dixie,” “Tenting Tonight On The Old Campground,” “Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier,” “Battle Cry Of Freedom,” “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and “Aura Lee.” Others were written about the war or specific battles, such as “The Battle Of Antietam,” “Secesh” about a rebel heading for Shiloh, “The Legend Of The Rebel Soldier” about a Confederate prisoner of war, “Marching Through Georgia” and “The Fall Of Charleston.” But many of them are included because they reflect what people were singing, playing and listening to on the home front, before, during and after the war. “Wildwood Flower” predates the Carter Family’s recording of it and even the war itself; “Lorena” and “Listen To The Mockingbird” also predate the war and were favorites on both sides of the conflict; “Pretty Saro” and “The Mermaid” came here from Great Britain. And the great American composer Stephen Foster penned “The Old Folks At Home,” “Hard Times” and “Beautiful Dreamer” for people to sing in their parlors at home, well before the war. These are just damn fine songs, and timeless as are all good songs.
But a song is just a song, in the wrong hands. Poster picked an amazing roster of artists to give their best to these songs; sometimes he paired up singer and song, sometimes the singers chose their own. It was an arduous multi-year process of getting it right. Some of these songs, we’ve all heard a million times, others we’ve never heard. Either way, they’re museum pieces. These musicians plucked them out of that musty, dusty old setting and revived them. Not by crazying them up with all sorts of modern gimmickry, but by performing them the way they’d perform any other song – their own way. When you’re interpreting an old song, whether it’s a classic one that everybody knows or an obscurity waiting to be rediscovered, you walk a fine line between homage and parody. To my ear, in just about every case, the artists and producers made the right choices.
Just start with “Dixie.” Everybody knows it, so much that it has been rendered the aural equivalent of wallpaper. Karen Elson slows it down and approaches it thoughtfully and tenderly, so it reflects the song’s original intent, that of a Northern freedman longing for the homeland he could never return to. Angel Snow does a similar service with her minor-key rendition of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” giving it a poignance that fits right in with the situation facing today’s families and communities as their veterans return from the ongoing Central Asian conflict.
On the opening track, Loretta Lynn’s “Take Your Guns and Go, John,” a song I’d never heard before, a young wife tells her man that she and the kids can keep the farm going after he’s marched off to war. I sincerely can’t tell whether this woman is speaking sincerely or ironically, so subtle is Lynn’s rendition.
Others of my favorites include Sam Amidon’s “Wildwood Flower,” John Doe’s “Tenting On the Old Campground,” Dirk Powell and Steve Earle’s “Just Before the Battle, Mother,” and Stuart Duncan’s “Listen to the Mockingbird,” with Dolly Parton on harmony vocals and Duncan’s bariton lead and sweet fiddling. Joe Henry does a beautiful job on “Aura Lee,” and another sentimental favorite is the final track, Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer” by the late, great Cowboy Jack Clement, who left us in 2013.
The recording and production work are superb. About half of the songs were produced by Bryan Sutton, and half by Joe Henry, with some of the musicians he regularly works with (fiddler Craig Eastman, bassist David Piltch and drummer Jay Bellerose). The backing musicians include a who’s who of Americana stalwarts including guitarist Greg Leisz, bassist Barry Bales, The Milk Carton Kids (Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale) and a handful of others. The accompanying booklet is handsome and very thorough, with historical and recording information on each track and a couple of enlightening essays, one by Sean Wilentz and one by John Cohen.
This album made my list of the Top 10 of 2013, and I’m surprised, nay shocked it didn’t make more such lists. All fans and supporters of American vernacular music ought to be listening to Divided & United, The Songs Of The Civil War. It’s that important, and it’s that good.
Here’s the first of three promotional videos for this project. You should watch it on YouTube, and then watch parts 2 and 3, also.
ATO, 2013
