THE ARTS | Reshaping ideas, expressing identity
26 July 2008
Profile of Stephen Foster
America’s first professional songwriter
(The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication, American Popular Music.)
Stephen Collins Foster (1826-64) is the first important composer of American popular song and the first American to make his living as a full-time professional songwriter. His earliest musical experiences growing up on the western frontier near Pittsburgh were dominated by the sentimental song tradition, considered a mark of gentility by upwardly mobile Americans. Foster also incorporated into his work the various song styles popular in mid-century America: ballads, Italian light opera, Irish and German songs, and minstrel songs. Foster was a master at creating simple but compelling combinations of melody and text, later referred to as “hooks.” His compositions were heard everywhere: in saloons, theaters, variety shows, and band concerts. His biggest hit, “Old Folks at Home,” sold 100,000 sheet music copies in 1851. This is equal to a million-seller today. Some of Foster’s songs became part of American oral tradition, passed from generation to generation.
Foster’s success as a “hit maker” depended on the public’s ability to read the arrangements of his songs published on sheet music and in songbooks. During this period, people often performed music in their homes. The piano remained a center of domestic music-making in the United States until the 1920s, when commercial radio was introduced.
Foster’s life ended in obscurity and poverty at the age of 37. His first success, “Oh! Susanna,” was sold to a music publisher for $100. The publisher made thousands of dollars from the worldwide hit, but no more money went to Foster. This was a typical situation, for the law covered the rights of music firms but not those of the composers of songs.
[This article is excerpted from American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, published by Oxford University Press, copyright (2003, 2007), and offered in an abridged edition by the Bureau of International Information Programs.]
