One of the things we do at Alabama Public Radio News is produce major journalism projects. That's where we've won most of our 187 awards for excellence in reporting. Back in 2014, we did one on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War. That's where Admiral David Farragut is said to have shouted, "Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead! Although there's not a stitch of evidence he actually said that. But I digress. I was down at Fort Morgan along the coast recording sound for that documentary when I got to hear Birmingham musician Bobby Horton. He contributed music to Ken Burns' PBS documentary "The Civil War" and that's just for starters. Horton worked on a total of 19 Burns films for public television, and then there was the time he worked for television comedy pioneer Red Skelton. You can ask your grandparents about that. Pull up a chair and get ready to learn more about the Civil War. My talk with Bobby Horton is next on APR Notebook.
PAT DUGGINS-- Bobby Horton, thank you so much for joining me on APR notebook.
BOBBY HORTON-- Pat, thank you. I'm honored to be with you, sir.
PAT-- No, the honor's all mine. I had the privilege of hearing you twice so far. Once at the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the other time was at Fort Morgan for the 150th of the Battle of Mobile Bay. You're not going to remember me. I was the pesky radio guy trying to mic your performance while you were up there trying to do your job, and the one thing that I remember was that it was the rendition you did of that plaintive, mournful rendition of Dixie on the guitar that figured into the Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War. I'm guessing you get a lot of requests for that, right?
HORTON-- Well, you know, not really. Yeah, you'd be surprised. Not well. Yeah. Well, that's true. I do some, but not like you'd think. It's a lovely, simple, simple melody. So it was, but it was. It's so lovely that you know Lincoln said. President Lincoln said one time, I think it's the it's it's the most beautiful song ever written. Is what he said when he was the war had just ended, and the Union Army was serenading him on the on the lawn of the White House, and after they'd finished their planned concert, they said, "mr. President, is there anything we can play for? He says, "Well, it's a song we haven't owned for a long time, and it's it's I think the most beautiful songs ever written, and it's called Dixie. Can you play it for me, and which they obviously did do that, and because it was a pre-war song written as a walk-around tune for a variety show or a minstrel show, and that's all it was, you know.
PAT-- And did I did I read right that the person who wrote it actually wrote it in New York City?
HORTON-- Oh, he may have, and I know he's from Ohio. His name is Daniel Emmett.
He was a vaudeville performer. Well, vaudeville back then they called it minstrel vaudeville, same thing, because that minstrel sort of dovetailed into vaudeville, which was coming later. But he, yeah, he wrote it as it was written as a happy tune to be played between acts.
Yeah, and it's and it's a great little tune, and of course because of the connotation being with the with the rebel government, you know that's people a lot of people don't like it anymore. But it was Lincoln's favorite song.
PAT—Do you think of yourself as a musician who's into history or a historian who's into music?
HORTON-- That's a good question because I know so many great musicians. So you know, when I think of them, I don't think of myself as a musician. I try to be, and and I know oodles of historians that I'm just, and I'm not a historian. What I am is an enthusiast, I think, because I've loved it my whole life. I majored in accounting and economics, so, but I made because you can't make a living in history or music, and yet I've made my living in both. So I cherish the people I admire in that are musicians and that are historians, you know, because I appreciate what they. Do and and it's fun. I mean, I try to be a a good player, but you know when I see one a guy that I say, well, now he's a really player, you know. And then you, I have guys that I say, man, he's a a really historian, you know. Like I say, when E. F. Hutton talks, everybody listens. Like this guy's saying, now if he talks, I will listen, and you know I've known some really great ones that are you know have some. I've had good fortune to work with a bunch of them, you know, programs and seminars and things like that. So well, there's a fellow named Herb Trotman who is now no longer has a shop. He's been a dear friend for years. Wonderful musician had a shop called Fredded Instruments, and any time something like that came across the board, he he'd call me up and say, "Hey, you interested in buying us like a pre-Martin Civil War pre-Civil War Martin guitar? I said, "Why, yeah, if it's not too expensive. And he said, "He told me the price. I said, "Why, yeah. So, and it's got a different sound, and I it's here, and you know I I don't I don't have a so my the old banjo I found is a 1880 I think or 1870s 1880 so it's post war but it's in the style of what they played but it makes a difference. So the sound is different. It's more woody. It's more earthy feeling sounding to me, anyway.
PAT-- So it's funny you mentioned Martin Guitar because, like in season one of APR Notebook, I had the privilege of speaking to to Jason Isbolt. Really? Yes, and he recorded his. That was a record that he did that was nominated for Grammy, Fox is in the Snow. He did that on like I think it was like a 1940s era Martin guitar.
HORTON-- Yeah. Oh yeah.
PAT-- And when he found that, it was like buried treasure. And yet, what you're talking about is like mid 19th century.
HORTON-- Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I think that at that time, that probably C.F. Martin himself. I doubt he's building them then because he was, but he was running the show, and he probably inspected everything that went through there. And I imagine I can just imagine that CF put his hands on that guitar and said, "Okay, it's good. Go send it out.
PAT-- Is there any white whale in terms of like an instrument that you're looking for from that era that you just can't find? That it's just so elusive. I'm trying to pick my metaphors correctly. Whether it's the the Flying Dutchman or the White Whale or that that thing that you really really want that you really really can't get?
HORTON-- Well, no, not really, because my wife would kill me if I got it. We've got so many. I've got yeah. I've been. I've gone too far. Not really, but everything I've ever bought, I bought for a reason, and it was used up and ended up making money with it on some kind of soundtrack or something, you know, on film scores, something like that. So, but that's a good question. I'm looking for the fiddle, the violin, you know, I'm really looking for that. But I'm pleased we will have, you know, I'm thankful for everything I have. But when you talk about, like, you know, not only the the amount of music, but the innovations that happen, credible. Yeah, I mean, how how surprised are people when you when you tell them this happened and this happened and this happened during the Civil War, and people, oh yeah, they just they're shocked. They're shocked. You know, there are people that I remember when I first started recording, I got the idea. I said, "There, there's got have to be plenty of dorky guys like me who would love to hear music the way it was played in Civil War. And and I couldn't find anything at the time, and and so I remember that Mormon Tabernacle Choir had a beautiful Civil War album, and and but it sounded like more tabernacle choir, and not instead of 56 Pennsylvania, you know, whatever singing these things, and and then Tennessee Ernie Ford had a wonderful recording in the 60s, a one of one of Union, one of Confederate, but he used like a 50s pop jazz band, you know, and it sounded 50s. You know, and I wanted to make something that sounded old. You know, like because that wouldn't that would not date the recording as long if you make it sound the way very generally sounded then, if as best you can. And so anyway, that making that sound is important, but how did I get off on that? I was the one who started. I'm sorry, because I no, I I mean, but you ask about the instrument itself. Those instruments, I use those. I look for them originally to get the sound. I try. I don't put any instrument on there on any of my recordings if if if it would be a foreign sound to them if the thing hadn't been invented yet. For example, you know, doing I did a Revolutionary War thing, and and see, I can't use a banjo. We can't use the squeeze box. You know, the, uh…
PAT—Concertina…
HORTON-- Concertina, concertina. Yeah, or you can't use a harmonica because they're 1850. See, so. You you try to even and when I'm doing a film, I try not to use any instrument that this you know if the film is set in the 18 early 18 s, I don't you know I try to use only instruments that the people we're talking about would have recognized you see, and so that's the way I’ve always approached that. So the the history the history of musical instruments is absolutely fascinating.
PAT-- One last tidbit that I dug up somewhere was it didn't I read right that it was sheet music actually started becoming standardized during the Civil War, and they had like 12 printing presses churning out copies of the Battle Cry of Freedom, and they still couldn't keep up with the demand.
HORTON--They had to do subscriptions. They had to, you know, the the song probably the one the most popular song I think that was written during the war. Best I can tell now based on what I found in the books, but you know the song is called the Kingdom Coming, or or the Year of Jubilo. Yes, that that guy's Henry Clay Work was that fella's name that wrote that, and he was a he was a a northern songwriter and a dandy, and he was he hated the South. He was very he was an abolitionist, and he couldn't stand the South, and so he wanted to write an anti Southern, antislavery tune. and so he came up with this, and his first subscription sold out before he had even finished the second verse. That's how good that he was, and and it was, and when it came out, it it was incredible. It just took the North by storm, and it actually crossed the Mason-Dixon line, and it was. They some people think that it was more popular in the South, even though it was slam in the South. They loved it. The white community loved it, but the black community embraced it. So it was a universally loved song. In fact, you know, I know that the the black community loved it because there there is evidence, historical evidence of them, you know, black troops who were fighting for the North later in the war, singing this song as they step off to make an actual attack. They're singing this song as they move forward. It's, it's cool, and they sold almost a million copies.
PAT—Just to show you how people get exposed to stuff in different ways. I'm a child of the '60s, and back then you had like these Hanna-Barbera, Tex Avery, cartoons that kids would watch, and I don't remember the name of the character. But everywhere he went, I think Dawes Butler did The Voice, and everywhere he went, he would just to whistle to himself (that tune, the “Year of Jubilo.”)
HORTON—(Singing) "Black folks, have you heard the massa with a mustache on his face? He's gone down the road sometime this morning, like he gone to leave the place. He saw the smoke up, way up the river where the lingum gunboats lay. He took his hat and he left very sudden. He speck he's gone away. The massa run, ha ha. The black folks stay, ho ho! Well, it must be now the kingdom coming in the year of Jubilo. That's it from Leviticus. You see, it is celebrating them and they're they they're free, man. You know, and so that's what's. I love that song. It is just a terrific song.
PAT --I'm Pat Duggins, and you're listening to the national award-winning APR Notebook. My guest is Birmingham musician Bobby Horton. He contributed music to Ken Burns' PBS documentary, The Civil War. Now, in case you thought I was kidding when I mentioned that Tex Avery cartoon that featured the song that Horton was talking about, the Year of Jubilo, well, I've got some sound for you. The lead character, voiced by actor Dawes Butler, just planted a bomb to blow someone up, and since it's a cartoon, of course he blows himself up. Okay, back to my talk with Bobby Horton. He formed a musical trio back in college called Three on a String. They're still touring. They're in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, and early on, they opened for TV comedy pioneer Red Skelton.
HORTON-- Some of the guys I knew, we had a group, and we would play. We would play on assemblies, and Jerry played guitar, and it was funny, and he was he would sing, and so we did some shows together in Hensley High School, and so I went on to Samford, and I you know had a great job working in a music store, and because I my I had to help my parents with you know monies, so I hustled my way through, but had great. Run! It was great. And Jerry was named my freshman year as freshman basketball coach. He called me one day and he said, "Hey, Warren Musgrove is the PR director for Sanford, and he owns a place called Horse Pens 40, and he has a folk festival this weekend. And one, and because he came up to me and said, "Jerry, you know somebody plays banjo, don't you? He said, "Yeah, he goes to school here. He said, "We think y'all would want to play this weekend. See, he called me and said, "Sure, let's do it. I didn't have anything to do, and and so we learned seven tunes that week, and we went up to horse pits, played seven tunes twice, made $15, and then and then took it to the house, and then I was talking to the fellow that I actually worked for, my boss at at Alabama Music Center, George Pruitt, a wonderful man, great musician, sax player, and I, you know, I grew up since I grew up playing trumpet. I'm the longest instrument. I admired him because he played in the big bands in Chicago and all this in the big band era and all this. Great guy. Anyway, he heard us up there because his wife was selling arts and crafts. He said, "You know, you guys, if you get a get you a bass player and somebody can sing a high harmony. He said, "I believe you got some. So I found a guy at Stanford, John Vest, great guy, very talented. He never played the bass. He said, "I do that, I reckon. And he learned quickly. And so we started playing, and and we got there's a guy came to us want us to play in a place called the Down Under at Vestavia Country Club, so then we had to get a name. We didn't have a name, and you know this just gonna be a one-time deal. So we were, I was coming up with stupid names like because Jerry's and Peanut Butter and Jerry or stuff. Just see, they didn't matter. And then, but we lend to my wife. We were brainstorming. She said, "Well, you three of you playing strings, you playing banjo, he's playing guitar, and you play three on the string. I said, "Okay, and I never did like the name, still don't, but it it's what it is, you know. So I get started. $15 a gig.
PAT-- Opening for Barbara Mandrell, Ray Stevens, but again, being a child of the '60s, I got to ask you about Red Skelton.
HORTON-- Oh man! Oh man! Oh man! Let me tell you, we played a thing. We were in some auditorium, and we were to do our show. Then they're going to have a speaker, and the Red Skelton's going to do a shoot. So because it was a long night for these folks, and so we did our show. But we got there in the afternoon. We were doing sound check and all that, and he walked in the back of the stage, and he he was in his 80s, and he was shuffling along, and he's and I said, "Wow! And he went in his room, and he got made up, and he came out. He was, he was, he looked great, and after we'd done our set, we sat backstage and he was holding court while this guy was doing a speech, because it's a doctor thing, you know, we were playing for, and he and and we and the lighting and sound guys were all gathered in a half circle around him. He was telling jokes. He was wonderful, and he said he was smiling. You get that old smile. I said, you know, this is an old joke, but you're looking at who told it first. He was he was nicer than you can imagine. He was wonderful.
PAT-- For any any of my you know newsroom interns at Alabama Public Radio who are tuning in and saying, who the heck is Red Skelton? You know, again, growing up, you know, my folks loved Red Skelton, and they had the clicker. So on when the TV went on, we watched Red Skelton, and he was great. I mean, he did like Clem Cadiddlehopper and Freddy the Freeloader. He was like one of these Carl Reiner… Sid Caesar…Milton Berle… kind of you know pioneers of comedy. And so in in in so in the so in the 80s and the 90s, when you were around him, he he still had it then, right?
HORTON-- He was he was he was doing pratfalls. He was in his 80s. He was out there pratfalling. I've never I was he was, you know, if you grow up watching a guy and you love him as a kid because he was funny and you know and you liked him to meet him and he's nicer than you would imagine him being. It was it was I was not disappointed. I was just well, and I said this is such a blessing to be sitting. I can't believe that's Fred Skelton right there, and he's nice. He's a nice, nice, nice man and funny. You know, he was great. He was just wonderful.
PAT-- And so all of this “Three on a String” stuff, you finally make it to the Alabama Hall of Fame.
HORTON-- Yeah, we lucked into that. Yeah, we sure did. Yeah, we we've I think we played in every state but three, and you know we played with symphonies and just doing all, you know, just doing stuff you never imagined because we didn't set out to do.
Is you know, you can't make a living in history and music. You know, everybody knows that.
PAT-- On to Ken Burns. How how did how did you and he get together for the Civil War?
HORTON-- Well, all right, Ken was working on “Civil War,” and he was in New York. It happened to be in New York, and there was a guy named Richard Snow who was the editor of American Heritage Magazine, which was a Forbes publication, and he was up in New York, and they'd done an article on a lot of the stuff I was doing, you know, and we're pulling out these old tunes and recording them and everything, as trying to as authentically as I could. And anyway, he said, "Ken, you're still working on Civil War. He said, "Yeah, about through with it, really. He said, "Well, there's this guy in Alabama. I think you ought to listen to, and that's how it started. And and I got a call from his brother Rick. They had listened to a lot of my recordings, and we made a deal on some of the tunes. See, I didn't actually work on Civil War. Now later he told me, said, "I wish I'd known you two years before. And I said, "Duh, me too, you know. But I mean, they obviously didn't mean me because the music was so fantastic in that. But I did get in it, and that's when we started. And 35 years over, 36, right? 36 years, and I've worked on 20 of his films, you know. So, and I can't believe I'd do him work right here in the house, you know. Did you have any idea was going to be as big as it was? I didn't know who was. No, and I forgot. Now I made the deal with Rick, you know, his brother, because Kim was so tied in with everything else. I mean, and so I forgot, almost forgotten about it, and the thing was going to come on PBS. You know, I watched PBS, and and so I went, and so I started watching. This is real. Oh, this is the I'm in this. I'd forgot about it because I didn't know Ken. You know, and and it was it was it was very fortunate to be in that thing, because that set set off a little career, you know, side career with him, you know, working for him, making, cutting tunes for him, you know, and it's been that's exciting. It's just so much fun to do that, and these guys, I can't tell you how wonderful they are. Ken's brilliant, but everybody up there is, and nobody ever quits him. They just retire from it. You know, he is that. But he he they work so hard. They're so smart. They're so very nice, and it is just a delight to to work for him. You know when they call me and want something, you know.
PAT-- So, so when you go on the road, a lot of destinations in the South. But I mean, I've heard of like shows you do like in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. You got Ohio coming up. Do do people in the North react to this music differently from people in the South?
HORTON-- Oh no, oh no, because the way I approach it, you know, I'm not taking a cause up there. You know, I'm I'm I'm celebrating men who got caught up in the whirlwind not of their making, and they made the best. They did the best they could do. I don't care if they were Yankee. I don't care if they were rebels. You know, because everybody's just like right now. We don't control. We control in our lives is very little, and it's same with them. And they do what they think they're supposed to, what their duty is. You know, that's the honorable thing. It always has been to an honorable man. You know, and so I celebrate the man, the individual, and I show that music. Music is so powerful for doing this, because say you even looking at World War II, look at World War Two same way, or the Civil War, they're writing home. They're not telling the truth in these letters, because it's so horrible. They they don't want make Mama and and the and and the wife worrying the people at home, so they don't tell them how bad it is and how the odds of me coming home are not good. I mean, they can see the tea leaves, you know, they can read the tea leaves, and so you can't trust that, and you can't trust sometimes the the books they wrote after the war because it's like all of us that played little league. The older I get, the better I was, you know, in my mind, and they same thing. The older you know, they got they got, the the more important they were to either Jeff Davis or Abraham Lincoln, you know, and which is exaggerated. But you look at what they sang, and singing is is they they would let it go. And I always say this in my little programs, where I'm doing this program, but it's really true. It's not manly for a soldier to whine them on about. I want to go home so badly I can't stand it. Of course, they all do. They they that wouldn't work, but you could sing about it, and they did. And that's why the Civil War music is so incredibly fascinating to me. Because they songwriters, since the the burgeoning songwriting business and publishing business was booming, then you know they they these so they would write about what the soldiers were feeling and thinking, and they would sing those songs and mean it. So you get more of a feeling of what it was like for these people who are just trying to do their duty and get it done and go home because that's all they want to do anyway, you know. You can chronicle the Civil War from the early patriotic music, which was in the beginning, and then it gets more realistic as it goes. They wrote about battles at the first. Next thing you know, very few songs were written about Gettysburg. Hundreds of songs were written about Shiloh. That was the first big bad boy, you know. Was, but they wrote about it. But by the time they get in '63 and in '64, they're not writing about any battle at all. They want to. They don't want to think about that. They write about home and and people that were heroes and people that went, you know, that did good things, and you know what I'm saying. I mean, and but the the common denominators home, they wrote about home. They want to go home, and so you you you can get to their, you can get to them that way and really understand them, and it's either side. It's it's about the same, you know. I mean, they'd make fun of their enemy, but that's but not so much. You know, as the war goes on, because reality, they had to grow up. These young people had to grow up so quickly. You know, so, and the music reflects all that. It's it's a treasure. It really, really is. And so that's the way I approach all these things. And I'm just trying to get to those people, and maybe for a short time, people sitting there would say, "Oh man, those were good folks. I'm glad they did what they did because we have this because they did what they did. You know, that's kind of the. But I don't know why I'm so fascinated with it. But I'd say, um, I can't explain it. I can't justify it. But it just is what it is, you know.
PAT-- Well, Mr. Horton, as we start to wrap up here, you know, I I mentor journalism students at the University of Alabama. I'm looking toward the next generation, trying to get you know kids to do what I do. I spoke to a human rights attorney who is working to inspire young law young law students to follow in her footsteps. Anybody in the pipeline that that you're working on?
HORTON-- Oh yes, I get letters from people that majored in music. I mean, major. I majored in history that are teaching history now. I've got. Yeah, it's real satisfying to know that. I mean, because they get it. You know, it's it's. I do. I hear from people, and so I and there are people that are playing this music now much more so than when I first started doing it. You know, because I don't know, I didn't know very few people were doing that at the time. That's just sounds almost corny, but it's true.
PAT-- Bobby Horton, thank you so much for talking to me on APR Notebook.
HORTON-- Well, thank you, Pat, for at for being here, and it's just such an honor to do so, and I appreciate it.
PAT—The now national award-winning “APR Notebook” is available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. The student interns in the APR Newsroom are Alexis Barone, Bella Steiert, J.D. Kizziah, Caroline Harrington, Caleb Salter, Jamel Jackson, Michael Green, Addison Phelps, Alex Schoenfeld, Matt Moran, and Logan Fitzpatrick. The APR Newsroom is also proud to be working with Lillian Onianwa, a veteran of Radio Nigeria. I'm Pat Duggins. We'll see you next time on APR Notebook.
