Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Oh! Susanna" in English language version.
But popularity didn't translate into success. His ebullient "Oh! Susanna" became the theme song of the Gold Rush, but Foster earned just $100 for that hit because crooked publishers failed to pay his royalties.
The song, written in 1847, soon spread throughout the country. Foster decided to become a full-time songwriter, a vocation no one had bothered to pursue until then.
Mr. EMERSON: I think that Stephen Foster really did create popular music as we still recognize it today. He did it because he took together all these strands of the American experience. That song is extremely Irish in its origins, just as other songs are extremely African-American, just as others are extremely Italian and operatic, or sometimes German, and even Czechoslovakian. For instance, the beat of "Oh! Susanna" is the beat of a polka. He's clearly effectively merged them into a single music. And I think he merged them in way that appeals to the multicultural mongrel experience of America in its history and culture.
But popularity didn't translate into success. His ebullient "Oh! Susanna" became the theme song of the Gold Rush, but Foster earned just $100 for that hit because crooked publishers failed to pay his royalties.
The song, written in 1847, soon spread throughout the country. Foster decided to become a full-time songwriter, a vocation no one had bothered to pursue until then.
Mr. EMERSON: I think that Stephen Foster really did create popular music as we still recognize it today. He did it because he took together all these strands of the American experience. That song is extremely Irish in its origins, just as other songs are extremely African-American, just as others are extremely Italian and operatic, or sometimes German, and even Czechoslovakian. For instance, the beat of "Oh! Susanna" is the beat of a polka. He's clearly effectively merged them into a single music. And I think he merged them in way that appeals to the multicultural mongrel experience of America in its history and culture.
