MARY'S GRIEF AND JOY

Composer: J. P. Webster

Webster composed and performed popular music. He studied with Lowell Mason and was active musically in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and directed a quartet company called the Euterpeans. In 1851, he moved to Madison, Indiana, followed by Chicago, Illinois (1855); Racine, Wisconsin (1856); and finally Elkhorn, Wisconsin (1859). Webster wrote over a thousand ballads and many hymns. His most famous secular song was his 1857 Lorena (words by Henry D. L. Webster). In its day, it was said to have been second in popularity only to Stephen Foster’s Suwanee River, and was sung by thousands of soldiers on both sides of the American civil war. An instrumental version appears in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, when Scarlett O’Hara is m… Go to person page >

Arranger: B. F. White

Benjamin F. White (b. Spartanburg, SC, 1800; d. Atlanta, GA, 1879), was coeditor of The Sacred Harp (1844). He came from a family of fourteen children and was largely self-taught. Eventually White became a popular singing-school teacher and editor of the weekly Harris County newspaper. Bert Polman Go to person page >