When Paula Shafer couldn’t physically get to Schoharie County to help with the clean up efforts after Hurricane Irene devastated the area last August, she decided to call on some friends.
A Civil War re-enactor and musical historian, the former teacher called on her friends in several local Civil War music groups to put on a series of concerts to benefit the flooding victims of Schoharie County. Two previous concerts have raised more than $1,000 and a third concert is about to be held at the Bethlehem Community Church in Delmar.
“It’s a community that’s neighboring us,” Shafer said. “We were really unaffected and we felt like we needed to help in some way.”
The four bands, Uncle Billy’s Balladeers, Iron Jacks, the 77th New York Regimental Balladeers and Rural Felicity have been playing together for years. They have once again joined forces for the benefit and to celebrate this year’s sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
The 77th New York Regimental Balladeers are from Windham, and have been together for 17 years with more than 350 performances under their collective belts. Dedicated to preserving the songs of the Antebellum and Civil War periods, the group uses original music and lyrics to “convey, emote and capture” the speech, beliefs, spirituality and patriotism of America’s ancestors. They have won several awards, and the group’s “Rally Round the Flag” CD project helped raise funds to preserve New York’s Civil War Battle Flags.
Iron Jacks is a Civil War Naval impression group affiliated with the U.S. Naval Landing Party, who “focus of everyday life aboard a ship or on land” with their vocals and instrumentals. Band leader Dave Dzeiwulski of Troy said in a statement, the group provides a “rough-and-tumble form of music about the sea, women, grog, misfortune and going home.”
For some, performing in the benefit is very personal.
Delmar resident Bill Frueh, who created the band Rural Felicity, said one of the members of his group used to live in Rotterdam Junction. She was taken out of her second floor apartment building by boat during the flooding.
“The devastation of those floods is amazing,” he said. “She lost about everything. She was the regimental cook, and she had some of our tents and cooking gear in her car. The water went over the top and totaled it.”
Rural Felicity performs 19th century historical music of the northeast, while providing fife and drum music to various re-enactor groups. Frueh said his group developed out of several local fife and drum groups after discovering many of the songs they played also had lyrics.
“We try to do it as close as to how the soldiers would do it, or people in a tavern,” he said. “We’re not real polished, just here to have fun. We figure if we’re not having fun, why would the audience have fun?”
Frueh explained many of the songs the groups will play do not have an allegiance to the north or south, but were songs sang throughout the country.
“Even down south they would sing northern songs, they just might change the words,” he said. “If you’re used to a song, are you going to stop singing them just because you’re on the opposite side? It’s not like they have top 40 radio.”
Frueh said many of the songs that survived the test of time and can still be heard today are the ones with catchy tunes, adding, “Even if they had good words they wouldn’t last if they didn’t have a good tune.” That’s especially true because very few could read music or were even literate during the time.
Since Frueh is blind, the lyrics to tunes pose a similar problem.
“I learn the words from records and CDs. When I don’t remember the words I make it up and the band yells at me,” he said. “But they have the words in front of them and I don’t. Plus there are dozens of different variations to songs, even ones we thinks are familiar like, ‘Yankee Doodle.’”
All of the money earned from the event will be donated to the Fields of Grace Outreach program in Middleburgh to provide vouchers for building material to flood victims in Schoharie County.
The concert will be held Friday, March 10, at the Bethlehem Community Church beginning at 4 p.m. Reservation tickets can be purchased by Saturday, March 3 but tickets will be sold at the door if they’re still available. The cost is $15 for a single ticket and $25 per couple.
For more information, visit www.fieldsofgrace.org or call 827-5344.
