Please note: Optional Dinner will start at 6:00 PM. The Lecture will start at 7:00 PM. To make dinner reservations, email CvilleCWRT@gmail.com and indicate your entree choice: prime rib, salmon or chicken. Dinner includes salad and dessert. Cost is $24 for members and $30 for non-members.

TOPIC:  In the time before technological means of hearing and playing music existed - even before the grammophone with waxed cylinders - if you wanted music, you had to listen to someone performing it live or make music yourself. In the mid-19th century many people, civilian and soldier alike, made music. Every regiment had a band. Two truths about popular music during the Civil War: 

1. Popular songs of the 1860's often put new lyrics to older, known melodies. AND

2. The great famine in Ireland that started in the late 1840's prompted a huge wave of Irish immigration to the US, and many popular tunes were Irish in origin.

Examples of tunes with shared (pirated) melodies and many of Irish origin will be shared by our own Ken Janson, a seasoned performer, recording artist and former director of The Thrown Together Band, which specialized in 19th century American and Celtic tunes.