Tag: Baptist Home

Last Friday, Feb. 24, 2012, the performing duo known as Plum Run played to a full house at Riverview Estates while a light drizzle fell just outside 303 Bank Avenue. Inside, spirits were not dampened by the misty scene that served as the musicians’ backdrop for the evening performance. Refreshments provided by the staff of Riverview Estates diminished any residual chills remaining.

Songs of the Civil War: History and Myth was a  free concert, part of an ongoing series of HSR history programs to commemorate the Sesquicentennial.of the American Civil War.

Part-historical interpreters, part-storytellers, part-music instructors, and part-accomplished musicians and talented songwriters as well, they fiddled and strummed, plucked and sang for the enjoyment of the public and the residents of the Baptist Home.  

Plus, whatever you call it when you clack those bones together. Lisa tells more about her fly swatting technique of getting sound from the percussion instrument with an ancient past.

Besides singing and playing songs authored during the Civil War, the pair performed new original songs from their album “No Longer Gray Or Blue” which sounded just as authentic as the ones from the 1860s.

Between our Publicist, Susan Dechnik, and myself, we captured the still shots that you find displayed on this post. Click here to view a 3 minute 167MB MP4 movie file with several video clips of their performance that evening. Give this big file a few moments to load.

You can find out more about the harmonious collaboration that is Plum Run at plumrunmusic.com and on any one of several other places on the web like myspace.com  that post some of their music.

For a concert on your computer, check out ourstage.com and click on play all to listen to 19 full versions of their songs plus two videos. The selections there represent a wider range from the pair’s musical repertoire than just the historical variety.

A good part of the real estate of the current Riverview Estates, or the Baptist Home, once belonged to Mr. Ezra Lippincott whose home and family have been the subject of many of Betty Hahle’s Yesterday columns in the Gaslight News over the years.

Use the search box on this website and you’ll find some of the more recent text and image references to  Lippincotts and 303 Bank Avenue. Riverview Estates publishes a history of beginnings and website located here.

This program was funded by the Horizons Speakers Bureau of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

As always, comment, challenge, complain, or contribute, if you please. – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor