August Coffee Talk: Our Land Between the Rivers, Illinois in Story & Song

Barry Cloyd is an award winning songwriter as well as a full-time touring musician with a special love for the history and music of our own Midwest. This newly commissioned program begins with a whirlwind trip back through time to the early days of the origins of our State and where it's name came from, the Illiniwek Nation of Native Americans. The original song “Inaji Wabli, Arise O' Eagle” will be performed and take us into the time of the French Voyageurs, the first Europeans, coming into this land in the late 1600's. Some of the “stops along the way” include Abraham Lincoln's appearance in Illinois, The Black Hawk War, the creation of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and The Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant's contributions, The Great Chicago Fire, the First Skyscraper, The Columbian Exposition, The Pullman Strike, Frank Lloyd Wright's genius, the Springfield Race Riots, “Lucky Lindy” in Illinois, Al Capone, Everett Dirksen, Carl Sandburg and a whole lot more. All this amazing history will be presented with songs that are germane to the period, traditional and original performed on guitar & 5-string banjo. Our state has been witness to, and a participant in, many of our nations most important events.