Can anyone point me to a source for a recording of the Suwannee River played in ragtime?
IIRC, Alexanders’ Ragtime Band did a version.
At the risk of making an a$$ of you and me, I had always assumed that it was merely an affectation of Irving Berlin and not something ever actually recorded. It was common for Jazz Bands and Ragtime Pianists to “Jazz up” popular tunes at the time and Ragtime was still popular when he wrote this. So, it kind of makes sense that he would make something like that up, or related something he may have heard in the lyric. It is unlikely that there is an actual recording of such a thing.
However, I could easily be wrong, as this is all gut instinct.
A quick google later and I turned up this:
at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/foster/filmmore/pt.html
A little more digging and I came up with this:
The album review page is: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:2n8o1vk2zzpa
Back to New Orleans, by Steve Wilkerson and Andrea Baker, but it doesn’t seem to be available.
Believe it or not, here it is:
You have to register to hear it, but “Old Folks at Home” is also “Sewanee River” and this is indeed an authentic Ragtime version of it. just click on the speaker after registering to hear it.
And you can order it from half.com at:
http://product.half.ebay.com/Climax-Rag_W0QQitemZ12361414600QQprZ3327409QQtgZvidetails