Clifton Hicks – Old Tar River – 1867 Minstrel Banjo

“Old Tar River” (Old Tare River) is attributed to Joel Walker Sweeney, who’s thought to have composed it by 1840. Frank Brower and Dan Emmett played it on stage in Lynchburg, Virginia, on July 4, 1841. Sweeney himself is documented performing it in New York City the following year. It first appears in print in THE COMPLETE BANJO PRECEPTOR by Elias Howe (1851).

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