During school visits, our instruction & performances may incorporate the following resources and services:
AUDIO RECORDINGS {3 ITEMS}
Hardtacks recordings of period music provide dramatic sonic context for classroom studies. We can forward CDs to the school, or teachers can stream audio online from our BandCamp page:
- GLOBAL BANJAR:
This collection presents banjo music from stages all around the antebellum world, in lively full-band interpretations, accompanied by a 24-page booklet of contextualizing quotes, images, and stories. - The Hardtacks SONGSTER COMPANION:
Consisting of diverse instrumental tracks to accompany lyrics found in our SONGSTER. - “Music of the CIVIL WAR”:
Songs performed by the Hardtacks and the “Sounds of Stow” Chorus, with commentary.
TEXT SOURCES: SONGSHEETS {1 ITEM + TEXTS}
Experience the antebellum & Civil War eras through the lyrics of the times!
The Hardtacks ANTEBELLUM & CIVIL WAR SONGSTER:
Over a hundred different lyrics from period songsheets and sheet music, ready to photocopy & share with students. These lyrics provide a lively launch for classroom discussions, student research, storytelling, and more. Our website offers more in-depth discussion of key songs (searchable by: Title + Year).
SAMPLE LYRICS & BACKGROUND NOTES:
Star-Spangled Banner (Key, 1814) - What's the connection between the US National Anthem, militant slave uprisings, and the burning of the White House? 
Jim Crow (Rice, 1830) - If we can hold our immediate revulsion at the (now offensive) language, we'll find some shocking critique and surprisingly liberal views in the lyrics...
I’m Off for California (1850s?) - Here’s a song you’ll recognize, and yet… it’s a side of the Gold Rush story you might not have heard about in school: The melody is Stephen Foster‘s first big hit, “Oh Susannah” (1847), ubiquitous in its time and still common in the “folk song” tradition over a century and a half later. Foster’s original composition features two world-changing technologies...
QUOTES
Uncle Sam’s Farm: “One grand, ocean-bound republic” - Stephen A. Douglas (1858): "This Union will not only live forever, but it will extend and expand until it covers the whole continent, and makes this confederacy one grand, ocean-bound Republic..."
VISUAL SOURCES
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Willis, 1850s?) - Wallis Willis created the song "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" sometime before 1862; we like to pair it with this 1862 photograph by Concord, NH's own H.P Moore.
The Hardtacks 