The Weekly Watch

Way Down Upon the Suwannee River
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I'm in Florida at the nation's longest running state folk festival. It is held at Stephen Foster State Park in White Springs on the Suwannee River.

The Florida Folk Festival began with the music: It was 1953, and Pete Seeger and the Weavers had a big hit with Leadbelly’s “Goodnight, Irene.” Folk music was exploding with acoustic guitar, coffee houses, banjos, beatniks and sing-alongs. Now some 70 years later, the Florida Folk Festival is still held every Memorial Day weekend, and you’re sure to hear plenty of folk music. But the event has broadened to celebrate Florida’s land, people and diverse cultural heritage. In addition to a full schedule of performances, you’ll find plenty to amuse and educate. The festival focuses on traditional crafts — everything from split rail fences to henna tattoos. And the food is not the same-as-everywhere festival food. Look for blue crab burritos, Jamaican patties, shrimp gumbo or Beulah Baptist Church’s chicken and dumplings dinner.

This year's schedule at the link.

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So while I'm playing, cutting up, and carrying on, I thought you might enjoy learning about the river, park, and festival in a largely forgotten part of Florida.

FLORIDA: Forgotten, Rural Towns In A Rare Quiet Part Of The State (40 min)

Stephen Foster never came to Florida, nor saw the Suwannee. However it its his composition which became Florida's state song. He led a tragic life writing the nation's biggest hits of the time and dying almost penniless.

Stephen Foster was America's first professional songwriter of note. He was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, and developed musical talent early in his life, while still young beginning to compose in the style of Negro minstrel music of the day. His first hit as a professional songwriter was "Oh! Susanna," which he sold to a publisher for $100 in 1848. In 1849, he began writing songs for the most successful black-faced minstrel troupe of all time, led by E.P. Christy, and from whom the 1960's folk group The New Christy Minstrels took their name. "The Old Folks at Home" (a/k/a "Swanee River") was written for Christy, and during the 1850's, Foster wrote most of his best-known songs, including "Camptown Races" and "My Old Kentucky Home." He married Jane Denny McDowell on July 22, 1850 and they settled in Pittsburgh, having one daughter, Marion. The troubled marriage was one of separations and reconciliations. During one such separation, he wrote "Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair," inspired by his estranged wife, and they reconciled after its publication. However, although Foster composed more than 200 songs in his lifetime, many still popular today, copyright laws in music were rarely enforced at the time and he made little money in his short life. By 1857, he was in a creative slump and in such economic straits that he sold all rights to any future songs for just under $2,000. He and his wife soon separated. He moved to New York City, living alone and suffering from acute alcoholism, which only added to his financial problems. Songs of the Civil War being fought at the time did not prove as popular as his previous songs. On January 13, 1864, he died in the charity ward of New York's Bellevue Hospital, being taken there after a protracted fever that had weakened him so much that he had collapsed and hit his head on a washbasin at home. Only two weeks before, he had composed his last great song, "Beautiful Dreamer."
...
It's perhaps appropriate that America's first great popular songwriter was born on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. It was also on that day that two signers of that Declaration, as well as two of America's most revered Presidents, passed on: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
For all his success as a songwriter, Foster was, by at least one account, a man whose life was plagued by misfortune and unhappiness. When he died in early 1864, aged 37, probably of tuberculosis, it was in a third-rate hotel on the Bowery. Separated from his beloved wife and children, and long since lost in alcoholism, he died with only thirty-seven cents in his pocket and these words scribbled in a piece of paper, "dear hearts and gentle friends." Was it the beginning of a letter? The title of a new song? We will never know.

Foster.jpg

Stephens Collins Foster was an American composer and songwriter who wrote 286 songs spanning a writing career of 20 years. Some of his songs became the favorites of middle class families which were sung by amateur singers when people gathered in their parlors. The “parlor” songs were accompanied by musical instruments such as pianos which were the prized possessions of a few well-to-do households. He also wrote a large number of songs sung by the minstrels while enacting comical skits and variety shows. The music curriculums followed by many schools include some his songs and they are termed as “childhood songs”. Most of his songs seemed to be based on his own experiences in life. The lyrics of his songs were tender and their rhythm was spell-binding. The songs contained his opinion about home, temperament, politics, battles, and life in plantations. His songs are still popular even after more than 150 years since the time they were written. He is considered as the most famous songwriter to have emerged in the nineteenth century. He is probably the most recognized American composer in other parts of the world.

Tour the museum with dioramas in this clip.

The real area attraction to me is the river and it's array of springs...(5 min)

The mirror like nature of the black water and the way the river has been protected make it a joy to paddle. Here's someones 12 minute recap.

Our 2015 paddle on the Suwannee River from White Springs to the Gulf of Mexico. From November 28th - December 13th we paddled our canoe down the Suwannee River, taking our time and stopping to appreciate the sites and springs along the way. Hop in the canoe and join us for a ride down one of America's greatest rivers!

The springs all along the river are beautiful, refreshingly cold, and numerous.

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History of White Springs

White Sulphur Spring that is the site of the Town of White Springs, has drawn people to the bend in the Suwannee River for centuries. Artifacts from Paleo-Indians and Timucuans are commonly found there, with shell middens and burial mounds close by.

First incorporated as Jackson Springs in 1831 by a group of businessmen who saw the spring and a good site for a ferry as moneymaking opportunities. William B. Hooker (who later became a cattle baron in Tampa), James T. Hooker, James D. Prevatt, Joseph Bryant and John Lee obtained the incorporation papers
White Springs water tower

By 1832 the healing powers of the waters surrounded with rocks encrusted with crystals of sulfur was being celebrated as far away as Philadelphia. CHB Collins established a ferry just up river from the spring and Florida’s first tourist destination was in business.

Bryant Sheffield, who took over the ferry in 1836, built a log hotel and built a log springhouse at Upper Mineral Springs, as it was then known. From there, the resort grew. During the Civil War,

Confederates found refuge from encroaching Union troops in the inland town. The Broward family, including the future governor Florida, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, moved from Fernandina to a plantation outside town and called it Rebel’s Refuge.

Wight and Powell, a prosperous mercantile business in Georgia, bought the spring property known as White Suphur Springs from the Sheffields in 1882 and laid out city lots. They sold to enterprising folks to establish retail stores, suppliers for the Sea Island cotton planters in the surrounding area and services for the burgeoning health and pleasure resort centered on the spring. The settlement incorporated in 1885 as White Springs.

Soon there were large hotels, boarding houses, cotton buyers and a gin, fashionable clothing and hat shops, a college for teachers and all manner of entertainment of the day including skating, lawn tennis and ballroom dancing. Stagecoaches gave way to railroad travel and the automobile replaced that.

The popularity of mineral springs as health resorts faded in the 1930s but by 1950 the Stephen Foster Memorial Museum, surrounded by lush formal gardens and later a carillon containing the world’s largest set of tubular bells, which honors the author of the world-renowned song of the Suwannee River, “Old Folks at Home”, continued the tourist trade.

The folk festival has an excellent archive with recordings over the years from a few of the many stages. Additionally here's a partial list of the performers. A few years ago I wrote a piece, about the Florida musicians from the festival who influenced me.

I play with my buddy Lloyd Baldwin. There are a few of the many sets we've played over the decades at the previous link.

Here's one I sing that our friend J U Lee wrote.

Lloyd Baldwin and Friends, they call themselves The Fish Camp Cut Ups, at the 2008 Florida Folk Festival.

So it is Sunday and the festival is coming to a close. We just have one set today, and we'll head home tomorrow. See you next week here at C99. Signing out from the festival...

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This is an open thread. Please share any story, idea, or experiences that are of interest.

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QMS's picture

Enjoy your folk music festival
Thanks for the weekly watch!

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enhydra lutris's picture

Black Water:

NOW, in keeping with the idea of a summary of the week past, crossed with the morning's emphasis on (one form of) art, this is from Wednesday:

Kenneth Anger, experimental filmmaker and occultist, RIP

(https://boingboing.net/2023/05/24/kenneth-anger-experimental-filmmaker-a...) Which includes the following clip:

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

ggersh's picture

For who knows what comes next in warmongering fascist
amerika.

Anyone think now that we aren't at war w/Russia?

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

enhydra lutris's picture

@ggersh

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

ggersh's picture

@enhydra lutris the neocons are to blame for most every
foreign policy blunder since Raygun if I'm not
mistaken

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

QMS's picture

while sanding the deck. The Fox News hounds would have us believe
we/they/them/us are fully woke. Mixed signals, but assuming the
understanding of wokefulness predicates being preconditioned to
accept that line of thinking, woke is not so much news as heresy.

Hey, if you want to be in the club of wokeness, just subsume all
basic understanding of reality. It may work?

OK, get back to the deck.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@QMS

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

Americans invested much more money in Hitler’s regime than it has in Zelensky's. And the results were much more devastating.

From naked capitalism

Milton
May 28, 2023 at 9:42 am

And the response from the Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Maria Zakharova:

U.S. Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham said with a satisfied smirk at a meeting with Zelensky: “Russians are dying. We have never spent money so well.”

During the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Minister of Economics of Nazi Germany, Hjalmar Schacht, stated that sponsorship of the Third Reich also came from abroad and named the two largest American corporations: Ford and General Motors. An unspoken deal was made with him – freedom in exchange for silence. Despite the protests of the Soviet representatives, he was released and lived to be 93 years old.

Let me remind you that the embodiment of the American dream, the same legendary Henry Ford was a holder of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the German Eagle. His factories in Germany not only produced up to 70 thousand trucks a year for the needs of the Wehrmacht, but also used the labor of prisoners, including Auschwitz, for this .

And the German icon of the automotive industry, Opel, belonged to … General Motors. Researcher Bradford Snell describes the role of the corporation as follows: “General Motors was far more important to the Nazi war machine than the Swiss banks. Switzerland was just a repository of stolen money. General Motors was an integral part of the German war effort. The Third Reich could have invaded Poland and Russia (USSR) without the help of Switzerland. But they couldn’t have done it without the help of General Motors.

The Kodak company at its plant in Germany manufactured fuses for aerial bombs, not disdaining to use even the labor of prisoners of war.

The Coca-Cola plant in Cologne, even before its nationalization by the German government, regularly supplied soda to German soldiers. And the famous “Fanta” was actually invented by the Nazis.

The oil giant Standard Oil, through its subsidiary campaigns, helped Hitler with the shortage of petroleum products, participated in synthetic rubber and synthetic fuels. And IBM, beloved by IT people all over the world, produced accounting and control devices for the Nazis, including for oil production. Among other things, the equipment of this company helped to keep track of train schedules to death camps…

And we have to mention banks: JPMorgan Chase & Co also had a hand, and then Chase National Bank, through which multibillion-dollar transactions were carried out, and Berlin had the opportunity to buy dollars and carry out financial transactions overseas. “Chase” cooperated with the German bank “Alliance” even in such a matter as … insurance of property and life of the guards of the concentration camps of the Third Reich.

Senator Graham definitely has some material to draw comparisons. One of their investments led to World War II and the Holocaust.

Now, billions of US dollars are pouring into the insatiable throat of the neo-Nazi Kiev regime. In this regard, I would like to remind the senators and all American beneficiaries how the previous adventure ended.

Funny how that part of the history of WW2 was never taught us in school. Without American support would there have ever been a war? Or the millions of people killed by the Nazi regime and in the fields?
I saw one woman respond to the tweet with Lindsay is only saying that because Putin told him to so that republicans would stop arming and supporting Ukraine. Good gravy how can anyone be that dense?

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

in TX.

Here is the headline from the TX Tribune:

Texas AG Ken Paxton impeached, suspended from duties; will face Senate trial

The House voted 121-23 to suspend the attorney general and refer him to the Senate for trial on charges of bribery, abuse of office and obstruction. It was the first such impeachment since 1975.

Many of the articles of impeachment focused on allegations that Paxton had repeatedly abused his powers of office to help a political donor and friend, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In fall 2020, eight top deputies in the attorney general’s office approached federal and state investigators to report their concerns about Paxton’s relationship with Paul.

All eight quit or were fired in the following months, and most of the details of their allegations against Paxton were revealed in a lawsuit by four former executives who claim they were fired — in violation of the Texas Whistleblower Act — in retaliation for reporting Paxton to the authorities. Paxton’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit is awaiting action by the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals.

Defying a last-minute appeal by former President Donald Trump, the Texas House voted overwhelmingly Saturday to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, suspending him from office over allegations of misconduct that included bribery and abuse of office.

The vote to adopt the 20 articles of impeachment was 121-23.

The stunning vote came two days after an investigative committee unveiled the articles — and two days before the close of a biennial legislative session that saw significant right-wing victories, including a ban on transgender health care for minors and new restrictions on public universities’ diversity efforts.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/27/ken-paxton-impeached-texas-attor...

Who is Nate Paul?

Paul, the founder and CEO of World Class Holdings, was mentioned in at least seven of the 20 articles of impeachment introduced against Paxton. The charges included bribery, misappropriation of public resources and disregard of official duty.

According to the House report, Paul renovated Paxton’s Austin home and hired Paxton’s mistress. In exchange, Paul allegedly received favors from the attorney general while his real estate empire was being hit with a wave of foreclosure cases.

“Paul received favorable legal assistance from, or specialized access to, the office of the attorney general,” reads the ninth article of impeachment filed by Rep. Andrew Murr, a Republican from Junction, who led the House investigation.

https://therealdeal.com/texas/2023/05/26/who-is-nate-paul/

Anyway the details of this story are over-the-top.

Thanks for the WW Lookout. It sounds as if you had a good time. Hope it was relaxing and refreshing and a good re-charge. Safe travels home.

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@randtntx
The brouhaha over our Attorneny General may make one think that corruption will not be tolerated in TX, but the Observer has a different take.

Was yesterday’s performance by the Texas House of Representatives intended to restore public faith in the body’s commitment to the rule of law? Separate the good cops in the GOP from the bad cops? Or prove that a legislature that spent a year cravenly ignoring the pleas of Uvalde victims’ relatives for common-sense gun safety laws before rejecting them outright while rushing through an attempt to put the Ten Commandments in every classroom isn’t really the 10th circle of hell? If so, the hearing leading up to a 121-23 vote to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton for corruption was an epic fail.

https://www.texasobserver.org/paxton-impeachment-accountability/

What the public saw—regardless of the lawmakers’ intentions—was an eruption into the open of fissures that have more to do with pride and power than justice. A cross between the state’s largest intra-party catfight and its most public self-inflicted gunshot wound, as the bad blood between Paxton and Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who serve as proxies for Trump and Republicans trying to distance themselves from Trump in advance of next year’s elections, finally spilled out into the open.

It's worth a read.
https://www.texasobserver.org/paxton-impeachment-accountability/

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@randtntx that he is out.
From the get go, any Texas attorney indicted and facing felony criminal charges is demanded by the State Bar to surrender their licenses until trial.
But not the top lawyer in the state. ?
Any attorney could be suspended from practice for a driving while intoxicated charge.
Paxton was someone's boy to do as told.
Always.
Unfortunately, TPTB have made it clear to Abbott who is to replace him.
sigh...

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

so happy with the result.

If you believe that they are sincere I have a bridge to sell you.

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@humphrey

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Our intended Back to the Basics Festival at Luckenbach was a non-starter. We went to the site the day before, did a walk around for the seating area, discovered that the only place you could set up a folding chair was an area where the stage was not visible. It was also very far from the restrooms. Standing room for 8 hours had no appeal at all, and it was directly in front of the stage.
We were so lucky to be close to Albert Hall Dance Hall and Ice House, and they had bands playing all day. We missed Ray Wylie Hubbard, but he is playing numerous venues close by this summer, so we will catch him eventually.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

He has to take care of his donors.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/manchin-gets-mountain-valley-pipeline-deal-i...

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic Senator Joe Manchin slipped into the debt-limit deal a measure meant to accelerate a multi-billion-dollar natural gas pipeline that’s been repeatedly stalled on environmental concerns, according to people familiar with the matter.

Manchin has tried for more than a year to secure a side deal for construction of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, which cuts through the Democratic lawmaker’s home state of West Virginia. The project stalled after a federal court rejected a permit to cross a national forest.

President Joe Biden’s negotiators decided that because the project is nearly done anyway — and has cleared almost all its legal hurdles — it would be unwise to reject Manchin’s proposal, one of the people said.

The language in the debt bill would force agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction of the pipeline and would give the DC Circuit jurisdiction over future litigation involving the project.

For years, its approvals have been challenged in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

if democrats didn’t have Manchin as a democrat then there would be a republican in his place and what would that get them? How can they not see through the rotating villain ploy yet? And if it’s not Manchin then it’d be Sinema or one of the many blue dawg democrats that would fck up the dem agenda? Great idea…vote in more democrats to take Manchin out of play. But then watch as more democrats become the rotating villain. There will ALWAYS be one and many more in reserve.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

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