What a gorgeous voice! It is wrenching and heart warming to listen to this song, still, 7 years after my father's passing, a true kentuckian, who left his old home to finally settle in Spain, where I grew up and live. You sound just like him, Thank you for posting your beautiful rendition! And I honour and praise the beautiful African American people who so enriched America in every way!
I am a Kentuckian. I've been away from my "Old Kentucky Home" for 40 years! I have not seen it except for random pictures that someone might show me of their trip. I long for but can't make it back. So I have the privilege of having Bill in my community where I can ask him to sing this song and inside I do "fall to pieces" My Old Kentucky Home Far Away!
I love this, maybe one of the best versions I’ve ever heard it is so hard for me to sing along as the tears stream down my face. He speaks truth when he says we get all blubbery
As a life-long Kentuckian, I get emotional every time I hear this song. I have lived the emotions, in this song. Glad to be a Kentuckian! No other place I would rather live than Kentucky! We are the land-locked nation of Kentucky.
DEAR SIR THIS SONG GOES TO HEART AND SOUL ZND YOU HAVE A VERY FINE VOICE KENTUCKY HAS BEEN A POOR STATE BUT THEY MANAGE TO GET BY AND THEY DON,T NEED CHARITY THANK GOD FOR OUR OLD KENTUCKY HOME MY SPELLING IS OFF TONIGHT IVAN FROM ILLINOIS.
I remember my great grandmother singing this song when I was little. She wasn't from Kentucky, and neither am I, but I still have to admit that I kind of like this song. She passed away when I was six, and I still think about her sometimes.
Thanks for the history lesson. I now know the true meaning behind this song. So when it brings a tear to my eye, as it always has, it will be not only for the beautiful state of Kentucky but for the families that were tore apart because of slavery.
Born and raised a proud Kentuckian on the tabacco fields of the Cumberland. My oh my how times change; why our governor would never sing the song of our great Commonwealth in its original way. Excellent presentation, our revisionist historians won't like this a bit.
absolutely beautiful song.i'm sorry if it might be accepted in the negative by some people,but the fact remains that stephen foster was probably the first great popular songwriter in u.s. history. i feel this song was & still is in good taste. it actually helps make a very solid link in the african american's struggle to fit in this nations harsh beginings and reminds us of their contribution in blood to this countrys strong foundations. that wont change so i would just be proud black or white.
Somewhere on the grounds by the Home was a photo taken of me at age 2, in 1954. I'm sitting on the lap of an old black banjo player . I was told , he was the most photographed person in Kentucky years ago.....pity I cannot find out who he was , even with the Web.
I had no idea about the background of this. We're singing this in my choir in Germany (I'm American and white), and I was thankful we're singing the German version, because it doesn't make any mention of slaves (coming form Calif., I never really heard this song). Now I know that it bemoans the fate of so many, and I don't feel so bad about singing it. Thanks.
Hi Billy. We jammed together on the Black Dog Store Porch and the Shenadoah with C.D.. Great singing and narration! Too many Radic-l L-ft W-ng Marx-st Mor-ns want to make everything about slavery and rac-sm to divide and separate our great Country. These same numbnuts gave Senator Byrd(Ku Klux Klan member), Biden(fought civil rights legislation), and the rac-st Democr-t Party(fought abolition) a free ride! Stephen Collins Foster was not racist! His parents were major supporters and contributors to the Abolition Movement.
Kentuckians are an exceptional people. The air, corn fields, mountains, creeks, bottles of bourbon, southern food, sweet tea, college basketball, bluegrass music, it's all special here! I love being a Kentuckian! My people were from England. Thank the Lord above that they migrated through Illinois south, to south-central Kentucky. That is my understanding about my family history.
I'm from Germany and I know some versions of this song of the beginning of recording such as from Alma Gluck. But WOW WOW WOW your interpretation make me a feeling of "Gänsehaut" (like we saying). Respekt!
As a Kentuckian, hearing the traditional lyrics is awe-inspiring.....brought tears to my eyes...if only all the pc minions would look at the historical meanings before the become "rabid."
The History of Kentucky is not one-dimensional, nor cut and dry. We have a rich history with quite a few blemishes. Be proud of the State for what it has done, not for the negatives that we have ended.
Stephen Fosters attitude towards race changed and evolved in his career. His first hit, Oh Susanna (1845) in a verse rairly subg today, included the lines, I jump'd aboard the telegraph and trabbled down de ribber, De lectrick fluid magnified, and kill'd five hundred Nigga. .
@cskirk i understand what you mean but it is 2011 now and if you still perform the song as it is, a state song, then you have to re-enlist it as a state song without offending any citizen of the state. i respect the original song like i do my heritage but i can not disregard offending my fellow statesmen if it does. in short. LONG LIVE MY HOME & GREAT STATE OF KENTUCKY. THE GREATEST STATE EVER IN THE WORLD.
@barrymore i understand what you mean but it is 2011 now and if you still perform the song as it is, a state song, then you have to re-enlist it as a state song without offending any citizen of the state. i respect the original song like i do my heritage but i can not disregard offending my fellow statesmen if it does. in short. LONG LIVE MY HOME & GREAT STATE OF KENTUCKY. THE GREATEST STATE EVER IN THE WORLD.
In 1861, there was quite literally the North, South then Kentucky. The State used an act of neutrality. My family has been in Kentucky since the 1750's; I have an ancestor who owned well over 80 slaves, running a plantation here in central Kentucky. His sons fought to preserve the Union in Federal Blue; but another ancestor who lived the the mountains of eastern Kentucky, barely owning the clothes on his back. But he did run to Virginia to join up to defend the border states.
The plantation owner in KY had the promise from Lincoln that he could keep his slaves forever, and that is why he did not hesitate to fight for the Union. Lincoln's proclamation stated that only the slaves in the unoccupied parts of the Confederate States were to be free; yes, the slaves he couldn't free he declared free, and the slaves he could have freed he didn't. The War was not fought over the side issue of slavery.
No you don't have to re-enlist it as to not offend. Who's rule is that? History is what is is, you can't sanitize every detail in an effort not to offend someone. We were a slave state period. Slavery was wrong. You don't hide it, you accept history for what it is. Kentucky was a slave state and we have moved forward, we don't hide from the past, we accept it and learn from it. Hiding history is wrong. Long live Kentucky no matter what the color of your skin.
@Dannys998877 what about the words of today's music? Gangsta culture is also as you put it, 'rotten to the core', THANK GOD FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH, which allows YOU to post your opinion, by the way.
Political Correctness has crushed the soul of this country. Slavery in my opinion was the biggest indignity and embarressment this nation or any race of people has ever faced. But what's happened to the first ammendment? Is Freedom Of Speech the law as long as you don't bad mouth an African American? As a Black man, I am embarrest that black people have not progressed and prospered after over 200 yrs.and that we still need special treatment to be considered equal. It's shameful..
You know, i love this song but this song didn't represent kentucky as a bunch of slave holders because in kentcuky a lot of people didn't have slave (hence the reason they never separated from the union in the civil war). kentcuky was full of poor people. people who fended for themselves and didnt have slaves. i know my family didn't have slaves and the ancestor i could find that fought in the civil war fought for the union. all of ky does not represent slavery and never will. LONG LIVE KY
Good intentions notwithstanding, words which reflect the racist attitudes of earlier times should be erased from our language and our music. And the sappy sentimentalism of Kentuckians is only slightly less objectionable than the legendary arrogance of Texans. The culture of the old South was rotten to the core, and the objectionable music only compounds the crime.
