CINDY

This Appalachian folk melody was a favorite "play party" song popularized by mountain fiddlers and banjo players during the early 19th century. By the mid-1850's, its popularity was well established. The present version has been adapted for use as a reel.

"THE MONMOUTH TAPES" is a series of excerpted video episodes named for a now long-gone annual Civil War reenactment held in Monmouth NJ, in the early 1990's. Twenty-odd songs were filmed in September of 1991, by two members of our reenactment unit, Co. I, 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry: George Briggs (a gifted black & white still photographer and admirer of Ansel Adams), and my oldest son, Erik Ewers (who would soon be interning at Ken Burns's Florentine Films, and now, still with Burns 26 Septembers later, has gone on to win 4 Emmy's for film and sound editing). Erik has also produced all of our audio recordings and edited our 1999 video, "Far, Far From Home," directed by Kevin R. Hershberger (Lionheart Filmworks, "Legends & Lies" for FNC).

The exuberance of the band's performance and the singing and enthusiasm of those attending is both compelling and absolutely authentic in nature. One can easily imagine similar scenes around countless fires in the camps of both armies. In fact, the period drawing that serves as the title screen for each sequential video shows how amazingly similar were the campfire scenes of the 1860's to those to be found in the "THE MONMOUTH TAPES."

We of the 2nd South Carolina String Band earnestly hope that our many, many fans in America and around the world (as incredible as that fact seems to us) will enjoy these early treatments of our music