1. Shenandoah

The end of the Civil War marked the beginning of the great westward migration: millions of pioneers in search of riches or simply a new life set out in endless wagon trains, pushing the frontier ever closer to the Pacific. With them they took precious few belongings, but many memories of the land they loved and left behind. “Shenandoah,” the words of a wistful Virginia settler transplanted west of the Missouri river, is an expression of his homesickness. Not only is “Shenandoah” one of the greatest American songs; James Erb’s arrangement stands as one of the most unforgettable folksong arrangements in the repertoire.

arr. James Erb

2. Sourwood Mountain

The words to “Sourwood Mountain,” an Appalachian folksong, exist in a great variety of versions, owing to its popularity and wide dispersal over time. The nonsense syllables of the refrain, “hi-ho, hi-ho diddle-um a-day,” may well be an imitation of the banjo, the characteristic instrument of the Appalachians.

arr. John Rutter

3. She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain

“She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” serves as a wonderful example of how “traditional” music can morph into different genres. It appears to have been adapted after the Civil War from a Negro spiritual entitled “When the Chariot Comes,” then converted by Appalachian whites into a folksong, and finally transformed into a railroad work-gang song. American composer Emma Lou Diemer takes the evolution a step further in her light, jazz-influenced, art-music arrangement.

arr. Emma Lou Diemer

4. Down to the River to Pray

“Down to the River to Pray,” an African-American spiritual, has been around for perhaps two centuries. In songs like “Shenandoah,” rivers were important geographic and spiritual landmarks to white pioneers, and to slaves they were metaphoric borders between freedom and slavery, heaven and earth. Here the poet calls on all mankind — sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, and sinners — to “come down to the river to pray,” and on the way to contemplate who is to be saved.

arr. Philip Lawson

5. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

Zanaida Robles, soprano

The plaintive words of the African-American spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” can be interpreted literally as the lament of a young slave sold away from his parents, but they were likely metaphoric. The “motherless child” could be a slave separated from and yearning for his African homeland, a slave suffering “a long way from home” — home being heaven — or most likely both. “Sometimes I Feel” was a repertoire piece for the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the first post-Civil-War choir of African-Americans to sing the music of their people in public concerts.

arr. Robert Fountain

6. Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier

American conductor and arranger Robert De Cormier introduces his interpretation of “Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier,” a song of the American Revolution, by writing, “The heartbreak and tears that accompany every war when a young soldier leaves his home is the eternal theme expressed in this gentle, haunting song. Probably the most beautiful song sung by Washington’s men is an American version of an Irish ballad, ‘Shule Aroon,’ which goes back to 1700, when Irishmen were leaving home to fight in the armies of France.” In another fascinating example of musical cross-pollination, “Shule Aroon” found its way in adapted fashion into the nineteenth-century African-American folksong repertoire.

arr. Robert De Cormier

7. Aura Lee

Daniel Babcock, tenor

The cultured poetry of “Aura Lee” betrays the fact that the song is composed rather than of folk origin. Written by W.W. Fosdick and George R. Poulton around the start of the Civil War, “Aura Lee” expresses the yearning of a young soldier for his “maid of golden hair.”

George R. Poulton, arr. Ralph Hunter, Alice Parker and Robert Shaw

8. Goober Peas

Mark Hayes describes “Goober Peas” as “a Civil War song” and “a favorite of Confederate soldiers.” “With food in short supply, the soldiers joked that they had to survive on peanuts (goober peas), which grew easily in the South.” The song was first published in 1866, immediately after the Civil War.

arr. Mark Hayes

9. He’s Gone Away

Like “Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier,” the tender North Carolina ballad “He’s Gone Away” presents the lament of a girl for her soldier gone to war. Neither the specifics of its origins nor its age are known. But unlike “Johnny,” “He’s Gone Away” is filled with hope for the young man’s return as the lass who sings it continually looks for a familiar silhouette on the horizon, “over yondro” (yonder).

arr. Ron Nelson

10. Cindy

Folksongs typically consist of just a melody, and for choral performance, composers have to “arrange” them, adding harmony, additional parts for the choral voices, changes of texture, and so on. Whereas most folksong arrangements are rather simple in keeping with the original material, Mack Wilberg’s “Cindy” is truly “symphonic.” The text comes in endless variations, from innocent to downright raunchy, and the twelve verses Wilberg chose are among the more polite.

arr. Mack Wilberg

11. Billy Boy

Of his version of “Billy Boy,” a sweet song in which a boy chats with his mother about his maternally dominated girlfriend, arranger Mark Hayes writes, “Dating to at least the early nineteenth century in the United States, ‘Billy Boy’ is one of the more popular ‘courting songs.’ Its lively comic banter inspired numerous improvisations over the years, including ‘She can make a loaf of bread with her nightcap on her head,’ and the ever popular ‘Yes, she took my hat and she threw it at the cat!’”

arr. Mark Hayes

12. Buffalo Gals

Nicholas Preston, tenor

“Buffalo Gals” is a rollicking piece that celebrates the joy of dancing under the night sky. Its roots are in the years before the Civil War, but the composer is unknown. John Hodges, a minstrel who performed in blackface under the stage name “Cool White,” published the first printed version in 1844. The words could change according to where it was sung, and so it might be known in Buffalo as “Buffalo Gals” but in California as “California Gals.”

arr. John Alexander and Ryan McSweeney

13. The Erie Canal

It is hard for us today to think of western New York as “the frontier,” but it was just that at the turn of the nineteenth century. To reach the Great Lakes with goods from the East required painfully slow oxcarts and vast amounts of time. That changed in 1825 when “The Erie Canal” opened, permitting barges of up to seventy-five tons to make the trip via water. Late in the nineteenth century, the mules that had pulled the loads fifteen miles a day were replaced by steam engines, and with their demise, an era came to an end. In 1906 Tin Pan Alley composer Thomas S. Allen mourned that lost age in this wistful song.

Thomas S. Allen, arr. Mark Hayes

14. Home on the Range

Familiar to every Boy Scout, Girl Scout, and most other Americans, “Home on the Range” is one of those tunes that sounds like a folksong but was actually written by an identified composer. It appeared in print in 1873 with words by Kansas doctor Brewster M. Higley and music by Daniel Kelly. Its popularity spread far and wide, and it became the state song of Kansas in 1947.

Daniel Kelly, arr. Mark Hayes

15. Colorado Trail

Colorado was a critical juncture for American pioneers: either they would stay on the eastern plains to farm or ranch, or they would journey across the Rockies, where many would die of cold or exhaustion. At first only hearty miners and cowboys lived in the mountains, where the latter drove cattle to market. “Colorado Trail” is a cowboy love song of unknown origin, but one writer reports that it was likely the work of “a cowboy from Duluth, Minnesota, whose name is unknown. He was brought to the hospital after being thrown and trampled by what he called ‘a terribly bad hoss. . . .’ As the unknown cowboy convalesced and his strength returned, he sang across the hospital ward in a mellowed tenor voice, and the other patients always called for more. One of the songs he sang was ‘Colorado Trail.’”

arr. Norman Luboff

16. Sacramento ~Sis Joe

Composer Jackson Berkey writes that his “Sacramento ~ Sis Joe” “is a joyous, eclectic mix of Americana at its best! It is a combination of [Stephen Foster’s 1850 song] ‘Camptown Races’ (with text about the Sacramento Gold rush) and ‘Sis Joe,’ a railroad work song used by Aaron Copland in his famous ‘Rodeo!’”

Jackson Berkey

17. How Can I Keep From Singing?

“How Can I Keep from Singing?” That is the question Baptist minister Robert Wadsworth Lowry (1826–1899) poses as a refrain in his hymn of the same title. It appeared and still is found in many hymnals with his lyrics, which folk singer Pete Seeger rewrote to soften their Christian focus and widen the song’s audience. It is in this form that most people know the piece and it is Seeger’s text that Ron Staheli used in this gentle, radiant arrangement.

arr. Ronald Staheli