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3 unusual facts about Carry Me Back to Old Virginny


1870s in music

Some of this decades' hits were the songs which we still remember today include "Good-bye, Liza Jane", "My Grandfather's Clock" and "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny".

Alma Gluck

Her recording of "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" for the Victor Talking Machine Co. was the first celebrity recording by a classical musician to sell one million copies.

Polk Miller

Although he did not perform in blackface, Polk sometimes billed himself as "The Old Virginia Plantation Negro" and performed Negro spirituals and pop and folk tunes such as James A. Bland's Carry Me Back to Old Virginny.


James A. Bland

He wrote over 700 songs, including "In the Evening by the Moonlight," "O Dem Golden Slippers" (the theme song for the long-running Philadelphia Mummers Parade) and "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny", published in 1878, which, in a slightly modified form, was the official State Song of Virginia from 1940-1997.


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