Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 3 · column 2 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
hear the stories. And Col. Mosby and I sort of hit it off tfogether.”
Writing the opera was a rewarding experience for Allen. Only once before this project had he enough material to put together a sustained storyline with his snippets of music.
Most of the actual composition was done in Texas, within the last year. Allen said it was important to him to “check my feelings, to see if they’d last when I was separated [from Virginia].”
They did. He wrote several hours a day, recording reel-to-reel his compositions and lyrics. Finally he sent the tape to a Houston music firm. It got a polite rejection.
Allen said his family — supportive from the beginning — told him the problem was that his work was all about Virginia, so local it was not likely to receive a positive hearing anywhere else.
So he returned to this area in March. Through friends he was put in touch with RAAC people, who expressed interest in presenting the work, which Allen describes as an acoustic rock opera.
There are 40 compositions, he says, each a “stand-alone,” but woven together “by the thread of Mosby.”
As it will be performed at the Little Washington premiere, “Tales” is not an opera, but a unique program of Allen’s lyrics and music in concert format.
In addition to Allen, who plays guitar and presents the lead vocals, “Tales” will introduce three musicians from this area.
Bassist Jeff Eckert of New Baltimore is a longtime friend. Clark Corbin, on guitar, is from Sperryville, and Cheryl Lehew of Manassas plays banjo. All do back-up vocals as well, performing lyrics that follow Mosby from his youth to the disbanding of the Rangers.
The concert, historically accurate insofar as “my research can ensure,” begins with a special rendition of the national anthem and a shortened form of a 10-minute patriotic Confederate rendering Allen composed. It ends with lyrics on the fall of the Confederate capitol — which talk of “startling] again,” but make no reference to Meshy’s later career as a politician and Republican supporter of U.S. Grant.
“If we do our job correctly, we’ll have folks leaving with [a sense of] depression and guilt,” Allen said, explaining, “It’s difficult to say anything good about the Civil War.”
93.9%