Getting Up Stairs

[Tim Twiss]

This is a commonly seen title in the old Minstrel days. I believe the melody has European roots, and survives even as a children's folk song today. It was mentioned as having been sung by P.T. Barnum himself one night in a pinch. It appears in Rice's 1858 book as an instrumental. Brown University has a copy, where it shows 2 Dandys engaged in a a fight ( over a woman most likely.) The lyrics in the Ethiopian Glee Book are interesting...like 17 verses or something. They seem to all be loose "floating" verses, although several of them have sharp poignant phrase that give a distinct impression of the time. Anybody play this and sing it? I'm going to give it a whirl...might be fun to post a few versions without us hearing each other first...see how we interpret it.

[Tim Twiss]

I would so love to time travel and hear these bands in the city...I'm sure they listened to each other, and the overlap of players gave a somewhat familiar voice to the ensembles. When I was a kid, and all the bands in town would learn a tune...there was a "way" they would do it that drew familiarity. It is hard to explain, but there was some basic essence to "Gloria" or "House of the Rising Sun" or "Johnny B Goode" that all the local groups shared, just from utilizing the same influences. I bet it was the same in NYC or wherever back then. Steal a cool bit from this group, cop the same feel from another, take this group's lyric, add a tambo like that group, and on and on.