Crackerbarrel Entertainments

Songs, Stories, & Tunes
From The Colonial, American Revolution, & Federalist Periods

Drawing on his extensive repertoire of folksongs, sea songs, chanteys, and
popular songs and tunes from a variety of times and places, Tom Callinan,
former CT junior high school teacher, has constructed a program of diverse
songs from early America.

The Early Songs: "We Gather Together", “Simple Gifts”, “Old Hundredth”
(The Doxology), and “Amazing Grace” were among the songs that were brought
to America by immigrants in search of religious freedom.

Songs Of Colonial Life: “The Life Of The Country Boy”, "With Horns And
Hounds", “Springfield Mountain”, “Jolly Old Roger (the tinmaker man), “The
Oxen Song” (logging), “The Codfish Chantey”, “In The Good Old Colony Days”,
"A Begging We Shall Go" (rogues), “Wild Amerikay” (emigration), and
“Pleasant And Delightful” and “Early One Morning” (off to war).

Revolutionary War/1812Songs: “”The Riflemen At Bennington”, “Captain
Jinks”, “Soldiers' Joy”, “The Battle Of The Kegs”, “Soldier, Soldier, Will
You Marry Me?”, “In The Days Of '76", “Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier”,
“Yankee Doodle”, “The Battle Of Stonington”, "The World Turned Upside
Down", “The Constitution”, and “Yankee Doodle Dandy-O” (The Constitution
And The Guerriere).

Sea Songs, Chanteys, & Tunes: “The Mermaid”, “Sam's Gone Away Aboard A Man
Of War”, “The Coasts Of High Barbary”, “Captain Kidd”, “Rolling Home To
Old New England”, “The Cruel Ship's Captain”, “Newcastle”, and “The Girl
I Left Behind Me”.

Please Note: Since no era is locked in time, isolated from the previous or

subsequent periods, the songs presented in this program are presented in
light of their historical perspective to the period between 1620 - 1820.

Tom Callinan's entertaining and informative narrative style brings audiences
of all ages into the performance with catchy choruses, interesting anecdotes,
and an assortment of musical instruments from the string, wind, and
percussion families. Special attention is paid to passing on the
fundamentals of the age-old art of spoon-playing to contemporary folk.

PLEASE NOTE: The programs listed below may be adapted to any age audience. More in-depth descriptions are available upon request. The presentations may be either specific and concentrated as to theme, or they may be more general in nature. It is possible for sponsors to create their own tailor-made program(s) from the choices below, as a potpourri or sampler. Custom-made programs are possible, but require at least two months of "lead" time, depending on the magnitude or complexity of the assignment(s).

Since 1984, Tom has been affiliated with the Fort Lauderdale-based National Week Of The Ocean, Inc. His 20 years of touring in South Florida have included outreach programs and marine/maritime enrichment programs at: schools, libraries, folk clubs and coffeehouses, county and national parks, museums, senior centers, yacht clubs, and "live" appearances on radio and television.

2004 marks National Week Of The Ocean's 25th Anniversary, and Tom will be returning to South Florida between May 1-10 for his 21st annual tour. Bookings for that period are now being sought.

Wed., May 5 - Edward J. Healey Rehab. & Nursing Center (formerly the Palm Beach County Home), West Palm Beach, FL. 2 P.M.

Thurs., May 6 - Adult Activity Center Luncheon, 1st Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale

Other bookings are in negotiation. Inquiries from interested sponsor(s) or referrals are welcome by E-Mail or at our TOLL-FREE number: (800) 565-3687.

Check Tom's website calendar page for periodic updates, new recordings, press releases, news and reviews, etc: www.Crackerbarrel-Ents.com

Tom Callinan, Connecticut's renowned multi-faceted entertainer (and first Official State Troubadour! ) - has hundreds of songs, tales, and tunes in his repertoire, plays up to twenty (20) musical instruments from the string, wind, and percussion families, and "... is an expert at getting the audience to take part in the performance." - The Evening Gazette, Worcester, Mass. General and custom shows are available throughout the year for audiences of all ages.

Celebrating 3 decades in the arts

Special Holiday & Thematic Programs:

January: Folk Songs, Past & Present (For North American Folk Music Month)
February: Valentine's Day/"Is It Love Or Just Tachycardia?"
February: Presidents Day/ Patriotic Songs & Tunes
February: Cub Scout 'Blue + Gold' Banquets
March: Irish & Irish-American Songs & Tunes For St. Patrick's Day
April: Earth Day/Arbor Day/Environmental Hootenanny
May: Mothers Day Songs & Tunes
May: Memorial Day/Patriotic Songs & Tunes
June: Fathers Day Songs & Tunes
June: Flag Day/Patriotic Songs & Tunes
July: Independence Day/Americana & Patriotic Songs
Summer: Sea Songs, Chanteys, & Nautical Lore
September: Labor Day/Work Songs
October: German Songs For Oktoberfest
October: Spooky Songs & Stories For Halloween
November: Veterans Day & Patriotic Songs
November: Thanksgiving/Harvest Songs
December: "Miss Houligan's Christmas Cake" (And Other Tasty Treats Of The
Season)
December: New Year's Eve Party Songs
Anytime: "Parties Make The World Go 'Round" (Multi-Cultural)

Custom tailor-made programs are also possible, depending on the complexity of
the assignment, and enough "lead-time" is provided for research (where applicable).

ATTENTION - Non-Profit Connecticut and New England sponsors: Partial funding assistance may be available from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts' "Arts Presentation Grants" program or New England Foundation for the Arts' "N.E.S.T" fee subsidy. Contact your state arts council or commission to see whether your group is eligible to apply.

Drawing on his ethnic heritage, two summers in Ireland, over 25 years as a performing member with THE MORGANS, Connecticut's Premier Irish Band, and with an extensive repertoire of: folksongs, stories, and popular songs and tunes from a variety of times and places on both sides of the Atlantic, Tom Callinan has constructed a participatory program of diverse songs, adaptable to audiences of all ages.

Adept at approximately twenty different musical instruments from the wind, string, and percussion families (penny whistle, spoons, bodhran [traditional Celtic frame drum], ocarina, guitar, banjar, among others), Mr. Callinan uses his considerable talents to enchant his audiences with tales and tunes of The Emerald Isle. Included in the program is material that reflects the whole range of human emotions, from the cradle to the grave: work songs, play songs, songs and stories of coming and going, of youth and old age, courtship and marriage, emigration, immigration, and migration, the famine, the "troubles", nationalism, Mr. Callinan's original compositions, other contemporary selections, as well as old favorites and ballads that can leave a lump in one's throat. The program also includes lively selections and tunes that get the hands clapping, and the toes tapping.

As with all of his presentations, audience participation is an integral part of each performance. Choruses and/or appropriate hand gestures will be taught, and Tom's engaging and informative narrative style will introduce each song or story with a brief explanation of its origin, purpose, etc.

Three albums: "The Rambler From Clare", "Shamrock Roots", and "A Little Bit o'Erin" are available for purchase at $17. each for CDs or $12. each for cassettes (price includes shipping).

Drawing on his extensive repertoire of folksongs, sea songs, chanteys, popular songs and tunes from a variety of times and places, and original compositions, Tom Callinan, former CT junior high school teacher, who was designated Connecticut's first "Official State Troubadour" (1991), and a Master Teaching Artist (1995) has constructed a program of diverse songs from Connecticut's past and present.

The songs reflect a wide thematic range: songs from Colonial and Revolutionary War periods; songs from the 1800's; through songs as current as today's on-going environmental crises. The participatory program is adaptable to any age audience, and may be presented in a concert/assembly format, or as a classroom workshop or residency. In the latter format, students would culminate their studies of local and state history, culture, customs, etc. by writing a song about some aspect(s) of their community.

"Thumbs Up For Connecticut!" (CT as viewed in relation to one's hand) "Save The Singing Bridge"

"The Universal River Song" (adaptable to any river, anywhere) "The Hills Of My Connecticut"

"Yankee Doodle" (The Official State Song, ca. 1776) "Connecticut Is The Place For Me"

"Ode To 'B.W.'" (about the beluga whale shot in L.I. Sound in 1986) "March Of The Troubadours"

"The Shore Line East" (the commuter train between Old Saybrook-New Haven) "Technology Park"

"The Caribbean Ferry" traveling between New London and Orient Point, NY) "Symbolically Connecticut"

Tom Callinan's entertaining and informative narrative style brings his audiences into his performances with catchy choruses, interesting anecdotes, and an assortment of musical instruments from the string, wind, and percussion families.

Special attention is paid to passing on the age-old fundamentals of spoon-playing to contemporary folk.

"Callinan is an expert at getting the audience to take part in the performance."

Tom Callinan's Connecticut Troubador; Connecticut Grown; and Connecticut Sampler albums are available, click the images below to view our catalog page

Songs, Stories, & Tunes
From The Colonial, American Revolution, & Federalist Periods

Through music and storytelling, TOM CALLINAN and/or ANN SHAPIRO, (folksingers, songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, storytellers, and Master Teaching Artists from Connecticut), provide a look at the restless American spirit with singable, thought-provoking songs, stories, and activities about emigration (from a variety of countries), immigration to the United States, and migration, once here - throughout history. While the bulk of the material in their presentation is drawn from their personal backgrounds, there is also a representation from numerous other cultures who have contributed to the patchwork quilt (sometimes referred to as "The Melting Pot") that is present in contemporary America society. Also included are examples of material that immigrants brought with them from other countries, and some of their variants, as they became Americanized.

The songs, stories, and tunes will not only get students singing and clapping along, but they will stimulate lively discussions in your classroom, while serving as springboards for their investigation of their own personal and familial ties with the past and the present.

TOM's and/or ANN's demonstration of several homemade and/or "found" musical instruments extends the music-making to you and your students as follow-ups to their presentations.

Available as concert/assembly programs as well as classroom workshops and residencies. In classroom workshops, through the simple songwriting process of re-writing lyrics, you and your students can explore how music can be an effective tool for learning or reinforcing curricular concepts.

"THE 100% AMERICAN" From Ralph Linton's The Study Of Man

" ... the 100% American is he who sleeps on a bed originated in the Near East, throws back covers domesticated in India or the Near East, slips on his moccasins invented by the Indians of the Eastern woodland, takes off his pajamas invented in India, washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls, shaves, a rite derived from ancient Egypt ...

Before going out for breakfast he glances through a window, made of glass invented in Egypt, and if it is raining, puts on overshoes made of rubber discovered by the Central American Indian, and takes out an umbrella invented in southeastern Asia.

At breakfast he eats from a plate of pottery invented in China. His knife is of steel, an alloy first made in Southern India, his fork, a medieval Italian invention, and his spoon, a derivative of a Roman original. When he has finished eating, he settles back to smoke, an American Indian habit.

While smoking, he settles back to read the news of the day, imprinted in characters invented by the ancient Semites upon a material invented in China, by a process invented in Germany. As he absorbs the accounts of foreign troubles, he will, if he is a good conservative citizen, thank a Hebrew deity in an Indo-European language that he is 100% American."

Tom's extensive repertoire includes songs and stories of: the mines, railroads, farms, factories, mills, lumbermen, building trades, prisons, etc. Sea chanteys were used to coordinate a variety of cooperative tasks on shipboard. Examples from the fisheries, merchant-marine, and whaling industries will be included. Many of the songs are participatory, and a bodhran (traditional Celtic frame drum) is used to set a cadence with its primal sound. Histories of the songs' uses are explained, and choruses are taught.

Physical participation includes the use of a student-operated prop capstan, to raise a small anchor on-stage. Other student-volunteers raise and/or furl a simulated sail via halyard and/or bunting chanteys. Participatory sea songs employ choruses sung by mariners, past and present; fo'c'stle ballads recall the days of wooden ships and iron men. Instrumental selections, using a variety of string, wind, and percussion instruments, get the feet tapping and the hands clapping.

SHIVER ME TIMBERS!
Songs & Salty Tales Of Pirates, The Jolly Roger, Gold, Dubloons, & Pieces-Of-Eight

All "Tom-The-Pirate" photos were taken at the Topsfield, Mass. Public Library by Carole Valliere

"Old McDonald Was A Pirate" (Har, Har, Har, Har, Har! )

... And on his leg there was a peg ...(Har, Har, Har, Har, Har! )
... And on his eye there was a patch ... (Har, Har, Har, Har, Har! )
... And on his arm there was a hook ... (Har, Har, Har, Har, Har! )
Etc., etc. ...

Tom-The-Pirate, performs and teaches: chanteys (work songs) and sea songs about pirates, buccaneers, privateers, salty dogs, and a host of infamous nautical no-accounts. Self-accompanied on an array of string, wind, and percussion instruments, Tom gets the toes tapping and the hands clapping with spirited instrumental tunes played on a pennywhistle or ocarina.

Follow Captain Kidd's exploits in a song that was being distributed as a broadside when he was being marched to the gallows at Execution Dock in 1701. Lament with the last survivor of Barrett's Privateers. Go Over The Irish Sea with a silly ditty that will delight the kid(d?) in audiences of all ages. Blow-high, blow-low with a song about a saucy Barbary pirate.

Join in with some singable choruses to old sailor songs to pass on historical (and sometimes hysterical!) perspectives of the sea, marine-life, and maritime life to mariners and land-lubbers alike. Pull imaginary halyards to the tune of "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?", or weigh anchor by using a simulated capstan and working cooperatively while singing along with "Blow The Man Down", "Paddy West", etc. Envision sailors' misperceptions about whales through a couple of humorous ditties in which mariners were swallowed by leviathans.

Learn to play the spoons, become part of a "foo-foo" band selected from audience volunteers, and revel in an assortment of songs and tales about the comings and goings, the shipwrecks, the pirates, the trash and the treasure - past and present.

"Old McDonald Was A Pirate" (Har, Har, Har, Har, Har! )

... And in his hand there was a musket ...(Har, Har, Har, Har, Har! )
... And in his hook was 'Jolly Roger" ... (Har, Har, Har, Har, Har! )
Etc., etc. ...

Tom The Pirate with motley crew, raising the old "mud-hook" to the tune of "Blow The Man Down".

While Tom The Pirate toots "The Sailors Hornpipe" on pennywhistle his "Foo-Foo" Band plays:

Cpl. Willam H. Neal of the 17th Maine Infantry Regiment. He died at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863

Brother Against Brother-Songs, Tunes, & Tales From The War of Rebellion or Northern Aggression

Drawing on his extensive repertoire of folksongs, sea songs, chanteys, and popular songs and tunes from a variety of times and places, former Connecticut junior high school teacher, Tom Callinan, has constructed a program of diverse songs from and about the Civil War period.

Slave Songs: "Follow The Drinking Gourd" • "The Blue-Tailed Fly" • "No More Auction Block"

Confederate Songs: • "Dixie" • "The Bonnie Blue Flag" • "The Yellow Rose Of Texas" • "Goober Peas" • "Maryland, My Maryland" • "Roll Alabama, Roll" • "That Damn Yankee Lad" • "Lorena" • "Tom Dula" •

• "Marching Through Georgia" • "The Battle Cry Of Freedom" • "Just Before The Battle, Mother" • "Farewell To Grog" • "Kingdom Coming" • "The Minnesota-O" • "Paddy's Lamentation" •

• "Oh Susanna" • "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" About: • "Two Brothers" • "Connecticut's 9th" •

Tom Callinan's entertaining and informative narrative style brings audiences of all ages into the performance with catchy choruses, interesting anecdotes, and an assortment of musical instruments from the string, wind, and percussion families. Special attention is paid to passing on the fundamentals of the age-old art of spoon-playing to contemporary folk.

In 1861 Connecticut's 9th Volunteer Infantry Regiment was raised and mustered-in at Camp Welsh (a.k.a. Camp English) in New Haven. Consisting mostly of Irishmen, the 9th was known as "The Irish Regiment". Although its members came primarily from the New Haven area, 73 Connecticut towns were represented in its ranks.

The 9th's regimental flag featured a harp, sprigs of shamrocks two cannons, and a federal shield against a field of blue. Crested with an eagle, the words "Erin Go Bragh" (Ireland Forever) appeared on a scroll below the martial and nationalistic symbols. "The 9th" saw action throughout The Civil War, and in 1903 a statue was erected to honor the regiment at City Point (now known as Bayview Park), the very spot where they had been mustered-in.

Each year around Veterans Day, a wreath-laying ceremony is held at Bayview Park (Howard Ave. and Sixth St.), and on numerous occasions Tom Callinan, The Nutmeg State's 1st "Official State Troubadour" has sung his tribute to "Connecticut's 9th" - a blend of his original history-based lyrics, adapted to the tune of a popular 19th Century Irish melody.

Currently Tom serves on a committee of descendants and friends of "The 9th", to raise funds for the erection of a monument at the National Battlefield Park in Vicksburg, Mississippi - tentatively scheduled for its official installation sometime in 2008.

In the summer of 1862, members of "The 9th" toiled along with thousands of federal troops and slaves in a futile attempt to dig "Williams Canal" (later "Grant's Canal") around Vicksburg, "the Gibraltar of the Confederacy". If it had been successful, the canal would have re-routed the Mississippi River so federal shipping could've escaped the barrages from confederate batteries emplaced at Vicksburg. Over 150 members of "The 9th" died that summer from heat, exhaustion, and disease, and the monument will pay tribute to those hitherto unheralded patriots. Tom will be singing his original song entitled "Williams Canal" for the monument's installation in Vicksburg.

Both "Connecticut's 9th" and "Williams Canal" are included in Tom's CD (TC-009) entitled:
"BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER Songs, Tunes, & Tales From And About The American Civil War Period", which may be ordered from our catalog page: Callinan/recordings

For further information about "The 9th", click here: 9thRegimentHome

For a link to Quinnipiac University's scan of Thomas Hamilton Murray's 1903 regimental history of "The 9th" in its entirety, click here:www.quinnipiac.edu