In January 2012, some of
country music’s biggest stars gathered to bring the traditional American
folk songs written about by Laura Ingalls Wilder in her internationally
best-selling series Little House on the Prairie to life. For
the first time in concert, this music was performed in front of a rapt,
intimate audience at the Loveless Barn in Nashville and filmed for
broadcast. The concert will be aired nationwide on PBS throughout June
with additional broadcasts scheduled for Fall 2012 and beyond.
The
idea for pairing notable country artists with traditional American
repertoire was the brainchild of Dean Butler (film producer and the
actor who played Almanzo, Laura’s husband, on the Little House on the
Prairie TV show) and esteemed musicologist Dale Cockrell (Professor of
Musicology at Middle Tennessee State University). Dean Butler comments,
“Dale Cockrell loves traditional American music and I love the stories
of American pioneer life written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Having this
opportunity to share the music Laura recalled in her unforgettable
novels is nothing less than a dream come true.” The concert features Randy Travis, Rodney Atkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ashton Shepherd, The Roys, Natalie Grant and Committed (NBC Sing Off Champions) accompanied by an A-team band lead by Grammy award-winning musician and musical director Randy Scruggs.
Slated
for release on July 31, the concert DVD release contains 14
performances including standouts The Roy’s performance of “The Gum Tree
Canoe”, Ronnie Milsap’s “Dixie/The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and
“Roll the Old Chariot Along” by Committed in addition to bonus
performance footage from Natalie Grant, discussion of the historical
context for Charles Ingalls fiddle music from Dale Cockrell, and a video
short entitled: “Little House on the Prairie: the Legacy of Laura
Ingalls Wilder.” Also slated for release on July 31 are the accompanying
concert cd and a companion cd featuring recordings by Riders in the Sky, Bryan Sutton and Mac Wiseman, among others, performing additional songs from the books.
Little House on the Prairie,
the autobiographical bookseries by Laura Ingalls Wilder, offers the
most authentic first hand account of 19th-century American folk music
available to us. Seen through the lens of Laura’s father Charles “Pa”
Ingalls (1836-1902), a highly acclaimed fiddler of the time, the books
offer a window into the music that Americans played, sang and listened
to in the late 1800s. The Little House on the Prairie books are among the most popular of all time, with over 60 million copies sold since the release of Little House in the Big Woods in 1932. The much-loved TV show, which was inspired by the books, has been in syndication since its debut in 1974.