Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster

1	Beautiful Dreamer / Raul Malo 3:23
2	Slumber My Darling / Mark O'Connor 4:50
3	Don't Bet Money on the Shanghai / BR5-49 2:24
4	Nelly Was a Lady / Alvin Youngblood Hart 3:17
5	No One to Love / Judith Edelman 3:48
6	Camptown Races / The Duhks 3:00
7	My Old Kentucky Home, Goodnight / John Prine 3:46
8	Autumn Waltz / Henry Kaiser 2:54
9	In the Eye Abides the Heart / Beth Nielsen Chapman 2:55
10	Old Folks at Home (Swanee River) / David Ball 3:40
11	Oh! Susanna / Michelle Shocked & Pete Anderson 3:46
12	Willie We Have Missed You 3:43
13	Hard Times Come Again No More / Mavis Staples 4:13
14	Gentle Annie / Ollabelle 4:05
15	Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair / Roger McGuinn 3:20
16	Ah, May the Red Rose Live Always / Suzy Bogguss 4:10
17	Holiday Schottisch / Will Barrow 2:05
18	Comrades Fill No Glass for Me / Ron Sexsmith 5:39

Barnes & Noble

The American popular song begins with the work of Stephen Foster in the mid-1800s, and his contributions are honored on Beautiful Dreamer, wherein a contemporary cadre of performers from a broad range of musical disciplines render the songs as they were originally written, in several cases employing exotic instruments that heighten both the beauty of Foster's melodies and the poignant (and often fatalistic) idealism of his lyrics. For example, you'll hear a pump organ and glass harmonica on Beth Nielsen Chapman's lovely reading of Foster's translation of a German lied, "In the Eyes Abide the Heart," recorded here for the first time ever. The performances are universally outstanding -- the artists treat the songs like the precious gems they are, and the listener is rewarded with a fresh perspective on Foster's enduring art. Raul Malo offers a robust reading of "Beautiful Dreamer," Alison Krauss checks in with a tenderly whispered interpretation of the graceful lullaby "Slumber My Darling," and Alvin Youngblood Hart brings a country blues flavor to "Nelly Was a Lady." Supported by piano, organ, and acoustic slide guitar, gospel great Mavis Staples unsurprisingly turns "Hard Times Come No More" into a hymn of salvation. Rootsy newcomers Ollabelle, with Levon Helm's daughter Amy singing evocative lead vocals, sends out a rustic remembrance to a departed friend in the exquisitely crafted "Gentle Annie," while Roger McGuinn, playing that familiar electric 12-string, infuses "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" with a chiming whimsicality as his multi-tracked vocal adds a Byrds-like feel to the track. If a thing of beauty is indeed a joy forever, as John Keats insisted, then Beautiful Dreamer is destined to age gracefully, and to live long in the heart. David McGee

All Music Guide

If ideas move forward on the shoulders of giants, and that is certainly true in the world of American pop music, then Stephen Foster's shoulders are the ones at the bottom of the heap, because he is the first truly American songwriter. Drawing both from the transplanted song traditions of the European émigrés and the rhythmic sophistication of African-American spirituals and folk pieces, Foster cobbled together a truly multicultural base for popular American music in the 1840s, turning out such enduring compositions as "Beautiful Dreamer," "Camptown Races," "Old Folks at Home" (probably best known as "Swanee River"), "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair," "Oh! Susanna," and "Old Kentucky Home," pieces that dressed up aspects of the frequently risqué and racist minstrel tradition in fine new clothes (with the offensive parts thankfully excised). Foster was also the first American songwriter to get royally fleeced by the music business, and he died in 1864 with only 38 cents to his name, a forgotten resident of the Bowery. Foster was the founder of the pop music you hear on your car radio, whether it's jazz, country, rock, or rap, because all of these forms draw on the cross-thatching of traditions that Foster first joined into a single stream of American music nearly 150 years ago. This interesting collection of Foster songs by an assortment of country, folk, and pop performers points out how versatile (and how exceedingly lovely) these pieces continue to be. A song like "Don't Bet Money on the Shanghai," done here by BR5-49, even exhibits eerie postmodern sensibilities, right down to its hard-to-pin-down ironic tone, and one could easily imagine Randy Newman having written it. A version here of the often-maligned "Camptown Races" (just remember the rendition in the movie Blazing Saddles) by the Duhks restores its inherent polyrhythmic richness, while Mavis Staples brings gospel wisdom to the elegantly sad and hopeful "Hard Times Come Again No More." Roger McGuinn turns "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" into a lost Byrds' classic, and it is interesting to recall that the Byrds recorded Foster's "Oh! Susanna" for their second album in 1966. Foster's songs have all too often been viewed through the lens of nostalgia (a device Foster deliberately employed and willingly exploited), but their deceptively simple melodies and rich cultural histories full of merging rhythms from different continents make them a good deal more than that, not only the first true American songs, but also among the best. Their amazing longevity proves the point, because in pop music nothing survives without utility. Steve Leggett