Camptown Races

"Gwine to Run All Night, or
De Camptown Races"
Song by Christy's Minstrels
Published February 1850
Songwriter(s) Stephen Foster

"Gwine to Run All Night, or De Camptown Races" (popularly known as "Camptown Races") is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864). ( Play [1]) It was published in February 1850 by F. D. Benteen of Baltimore, Maryland. Benteen published a different version with guitar accompaniment in 1852 under the title, "The Celebrated Ethiopian Song/Camptown Races".

First stanza

Camptown ladies sing dis song, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
Camptown race-track five miles long, Oh, doo-dah day!
I come down dah wid my hat caved in, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
I go back home wid a pocket full of tin, Oh, doo-dah day!

Gwine to run all night!
Gwine to run all day!
I'll bet my money on de bob-tail nag,
Somebody bet on de bay.

Reception

"Camptown Races" was introduced by the Christy's Minstrels.

Richard Jackson, (curator 1965-90)[2] of the Americana Collection, New York Public Library, writes,

Foster quite specifically tailored the song for use on the minstrel stage. He composed it as a piece for solo voice with group interjections and refrain ... his dialect verses have all the wild exaggeration and rough charm of folk tale as well as some of his most vivid imagery ... Together with "Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races" is one of the gems of the minstrel era."[3][4][5]

In The Americana Song Reader, William Emmett Studwell writes that the song was introduced by the Christy Minstrels, and noting that "[Foster's] nonsense lyrics are much of the charm of this bouncy and enduring bit of Americana ... [The song] was a big hit with minstrel troupes throughout the country." Foster's music was used for derivatives that include "Sacramento", "A Capital Ship" (1875) and a pro-Lincoln parody introduced during the 1860 presidential campaign.[6]

In America's Musical Life, Richard Crawford observes that the song resembles Dan Emmett's "Old Dan Tucker", and suggests Foster used Emmett's piece as a model. Both songs feature contrast between a high instrumental register with a low vocal one, comic exaggeration, hyperbole, verse and refrain, call and response, and syncopation. However, Foster's melody is "jaunty and tuneful" while Emmett's is "driven and aggressive". Crawford points out that the differences in the two songs represent not only two different musical styles, but a shift in minstrelsy from the rough spirit and "muscular, unlyrical music" of the 1840s to a more genteel spirit and lyricism with an expanding repertoire that included sad songs, sentimental and love songs, and parodies of opera. Crawford explains that by mid-century, the "noisy, impromptu entertainments" characteristic of Dan Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels were passé and the minstrel stage was evolving into a "restrained and balanced kind of spectacle". He writes, "In that setting, a comic song like 'De Camptown Races', with a tune strong enough to hold performers to the prescribed notes, proved a means of channeling unruliness into a more controlled mode of expression."[7]

Its tune has also been adopted for use in football chants, most notably in England's Two World Wars and One World Cup chant.

Keystone Marker for Camptown, 4.2 miles north of Wyalusing, Pennsylvania[8][9]

Historians cite the village of Camptown, Pennsylvania as the basis for the song. It is located in the mountains of northeast Pennsylvania. The races were resumed nearby in 1965. The Pennsylvania Historical Society confirmed that Foster traveled through the small town and afterwards wrote the song. The Bradford County Historical Society documents Foster attending school in nearby Towanda and Athens in 1840 and 1841. The schools were located five miles from the racetrack. The current annual running of the Camptown Races was replaced by a 6.2-mile track covering rough lumbering trails. The village of Camptown has changed from having three general stores, three churches, a grist mill and a creamery, to one store and one church.[10]

"it's exactly five miles from Camptown to Wyalusing, where the horses ran."[10]

The song was the impetus for the re-naming of Camptown, a village of no-longer extant Clinton Township, Essex County, New Jersey. When the new ballad was published in 1850 the “better folk” of the village were mortified it would be associated with the bawdiness in song. The wife of the local postmaster suggested Irvington, to commemorate the writer Washington Irving, which was adopted in 1852.[11]

Recordings

In one of the most widely familiar uses of "Camptown Races" in popular culture, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn frequently hums the tune to himself (breaking into song only for the "Doo-Dah" refrain) in most of the 28 cartoons the character appears in, produced between 1946 and 1963. Notably, Leghorn was not based on a minstrel character, but on Kenny Delmar's popular radio character, the overbearing Southerner Senator Claghorn.[12]

The song was revived on a number of occasions in the twentieth century with recordings by Bing Crosby (recorded December 9, 1940),[13] Johnny Mercer (1945),[14] Al Jolson (recorded July 17, 1950),[15] Julie London (included in her album Swing Me an Old Song - 1959), and Frankie Laine (included in his album Deuces Wild - 1961).[16]

Country music singer Kenny Rogers recorded the song in 1970 with his group The First Edition on their album Tell It All Brother under the title of "Camptown Ladies."

TV

"Camptown Races" was performed at the end of the TV-series 30 Rock, Season 6, Episode 1 by Kara Oates.[17][18].
"Camptown Races" was performed in the TV-series All in the Family, Season 4, Episode 9 by character Michael "Meathead" Stivic, played by Rob Reiner. In UniKitty the main characters sing this in a Holloween themed episode, "Scary Tales".

Film

The tune is a leitmotif of the eponymous character

See also

References

  1. ↑ Humphries, Carl (2010). The Piano Improvisation Handbook, p. 199. ISBN 978-0-87930-977-0.
  2. ↑ "A Century of Music at The New York Public Library". The New York Public Library. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  3. ↑ Richard Jackson (ed.). 1974. Stephen Foster Song Book: original sheet music of 40 songs. Courier Dover Publications. p. 174.
  4. ↑ "Stephen Foster Song Book". store.doverpublications.com. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  5. ↑ Foster, Stephen Collins; Jackson, Richard (7 September 1974). "Stephen Foster Song Book: Original Sheet Music of 40 Songs". Courier Corporation. Retrieved 7 September 2018 – via Google Books.
  6. ↑ William Emmett Studwell. The Americana Song Reader. Psychology Press. p. 63.
  7. ↑ Richard Crawford. 2001. America's Musical Life: a history. W. W. Norton. pp. 210–11.
  8. ↑ "Camptown Races Historical Marker". WITF-TV and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  9. ↑ "Bradford County Historical Society". www.bradfordhistory.com. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Another 'Doo-dah-day' in Camptown". upi.com. 10 September 1982. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  11. ↑ Siegel, Alan A. "History of Irvington". Township of Irvingon. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  12. ↑ ""It's a Joke, Son!"", AFI Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States 1, University of California Press, 1971, p. 1190, ISBN 9780520215214
  13. ↑ "A Bing Crosby Discography". BING magazine. International Club Crosby. Retrieved August 5, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Johnny Mercer And The Pied Pipers With Paul Weston And His Orchestra - Surprise Party / Camptown Races". Discogs. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  15. ↑ "Al Jolson Society Official Website". www.jolson.org. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  16. ↑ "Frankie Laine - Deuces Wild". Discogs. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  17. ↑ "Camptown Races (30 Rock Version)". youtube.com. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  18. ↑ http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/features/2012/best_tv_2012/best_tv_2012_30_rock_and_america_s_kidz_got_singing.html
  19. ↑ "Holiday (1938)". Retrieved 7 September 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  20. ↑ "Blazing Saddles (1974)". Retrieved 7 September 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  21. ↑ "The Stepfather (1987) - soundtrack". Retrieved 7 September 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  22. ↑ "Stepfather II (1989)". Retrieved 7 September 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  23. ↑ "Passion (1999)". Retrieved 6 October 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
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