This year we celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of a great American composer. Born on July 4, 1826, Stephen Foster came to life on the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died. His “Oh! Susanna” became the banner song of forty-niners during the California gold rush. “Old Kentucky Home” and “Old Folks at Home” are still the state songs of Kentucky and Florida. “Camptown Races” and “Beautiful Dreamer” are sung today, more than a century and a half after they were written.

But troublesome lyrics in some of his songs risk diminishing his legacy. In Foster’s day, blackface minstrel shows were the popular entertainment, and songwriters who didn’t write for this medium would have had difficulty introducing their music to the world. The lyrics in Foster’s minstrel music, while indefensible, comprised only a small portion of his work. And decades ago, the Center for American Music revised Foster’s lyrics to omit offensive language.

It's hard to overstate the influence Foster had on American music as one of its first popular composers. Composer-lyricist Irving Berlin and composer-pianist George Gershwin both took inspiration from his songs. The tunes are timeless and the lyrics often speak to enduring and universal truths. It would be a shame if Foster, who wrote the defining music of his time, were deprived of his rightful place in history.

For this aging, vagabond author, Foster’s songs take me home to Suwannee River country in North Florida, where ancient, moss-clad oaks and palmetto scrub line the riverbanks a few miles from my grandparents’ homesteads. This book, “Beautiful Dreamer,” is my tribute to him.

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