Your Old Kentucky Home

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Certain songs are so closely associated with certain places that you can’t help but hum the tune when the name comes up in conversation. Some are more than just a song written to showcase a place, such as Tony Bennett’s “I Left My heart in San Francisco.” While that’s a fantastic song by a legendary singer, the song is contrived. It doesn’t speak of the history of the city or give a true sense of place.

Some of our guests’ favorite destinations are in the state of Kentucky. Louisville, Paducah and Henderson represent a wonderful slice of life, and in each you’ll find the citizens have an affinity for a minstrel song called “My Old Kentucky Home,” originally written around 1852. Though it was at first called “My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night,” it rose to popularity a year later when it was performed by Christy’s Minstrels. Minstrel shows were very popular in the mid-nineteenth century, featuring musical acts and skits by performers in blackface.

Keep in mind that the world of the 1850s was a far different world than it is in 2013. A traveling troupe of white men in blackface was not only accepted, it was extremely popular, even in New York, at the time. Today, we would all be both shocked and offended to see the song performed as it was originally intended.

Written by Stephen Foster, this particular song was conceived to take advantage of the popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. An opportunist, Foster tentatively called the tune “Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night.” And that’s when the legacy of “My Old Kentucky Home” gets interesting. While it is a reminder of a troubling time in American history today, it was actually praised by abolitionists prior to the Civil War. Reportedly, Frederick Douglass thought that it humanized the plight of slaves and would help the anti-slavery movement.

The song describes life on a Kentucky plantation and as the decades passed, the views of Frederick Douglass toward the song outweighed those who viewed it as antiquated. It chronicled the hardships of slavery but also the love families had for one another and for their treasured home. By 1928, it had become the official state song of Kentucky and by 1930 was the official song of the Kentucky Derby, held each year at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Numerous universities have embraced it for its sense of history, playing it at sporting events. In movies ranging from The Story of Seabiscuit to Gone with the Wind, it has been featured prominently. And unlike many state songs, it captures a time from Kentucky’s past in a way that honors the memories of those who lived and died under a different set of rules than we have today.

The chorus gives a sense of the heartfelt love that all Kentuckians share for their native state:

Weep no more, my lady,
Oh weep no more today!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home,
For the old Kentucky home far away.

As you travel along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers on the American Queen, this unflappable loyalty to Kentucky becomes evident.The friendly spirit and warm hospitality of Paducah date back to its founding in 1815 as a community of both settlers and Native Americans. Chief Paduke, a Chickasaw Indian, was kind and generous to those traveling down the river by keelboat and flatboat. His village was a center of Native American life and when some of the settlers to which the chief had offered food and lodging decided to stay, they formed a community across the small creek from the Indian village. The two groups lived in peace for many years, and the settler’s town flourished with its influx of horses and mules which pulled flatboats along the river. That changed in 1827, when William Clark, best known for his title role in the Lewis and Clark expedition, asked the chief and settlers to vacate the land, to which he now held title. Clark quickly built a new town but honored its prior resident by naming it Paducah.

Henderson is rooted in Native American history as a Cherokee settlement called Red Banks, now the present-day site of Audubon Mill Park just south of the wharf. The name stemmed from the region’s red clay and by the end of the 1700s, it was a small prosperous outpost composed of Native Americans and European settlers. North Carolina judge Colonel Richard Henderson, along with the Transylvania Company, tried to buy the land from the Cherokee in 1792. Although the purchase was later voided, Henderson ended up with 200,000 acres and hired Daniel Boone to survey the land to find the best sites to sell to settlers.

Best known as the home of the Kentucky Derby and bourbon whiskey, Louisville has a long, vibrant history and was a key connection in the national riverboat network. Founded in 1778 and named after King Louis XVI of France, the city is among the oldest in the region. Louisville is located at the rapids on the Ohio River known as the falls of Ohio, which created a barrier to river transportation in the early 1800s. Due to the falls, cargo and passengers had to be removed, sent ashore, and then reloaded onto keelboats and riverboats south of the city to continue their journey. The Louisville and Portland Canal opened in 1830 to bypass the falls and through the years the alternate route and a series of locks expanded to ease river navigation.

Today, these destinations are an integral part of an American Queen Steamboat Company river voyage. For example, we have two 9-day journeys that showcase the best of Kentucky. Sail from St. Louis to Cincinnati on July 19, 2013 or from Cincinnati to St. Louis on August 14, 2013 and if you make your reservations before May 31, 2013, you can save up to $750 per stateroom. The July 19 departure is our Baseball Legends theme voyage and the August 14 voyage celebrates the Good Old Summertime.

No matter which journey you choose, of one thing we are certain. You will fall in love with Kentucky in a way that makes the song “My Old Kentucky Home” as beloved in your heart as it is in the hearts of those who have lived here for generations. Soon, this wonderful land will become Your Kentucky Home.