Celebrate 250 years of Pittsburgh History in song and images from Pittsburgh's past and present"
Check out this video: Happy Birthday to Pittsburgh - Images of the Burgh
In Americana song Happy Birthday to Pittsburgh Mike Stout salutes an historical parade of Pittsburgh heroes from the earliest indigenous natives (Guyasuta, the Shingas, Queen Aliquippa), through the abolitionists leaders Martin Delany and George Vashon, the heroic women union activists (Fannie Sellins, Crystal Eastman, Nellie Bly, Lizzie Butler, and Mother Jones), the millions who worked in the steel, glass, and coal industries, to the displaced refuges of the Steeler Nation spread across the globe. Their city and it's people are celebrated with the chorus …"From the North Hills to the South Hills to the East and West End….Happy Birthday to Pittsburgh from your family and friends."
To commemorate Pittsburgh 250th anniversary, historian Charles McCollester's new book on the history of Pittsburgh and singer-song writer Mike Stout's latest CD about Pittsburgh heroes and are being jointly released under the title "The Point of Pittsburgh". For Charles McCollester and Mike Stout, the Point of Pittsburgh is the unconquerable spirit of the people of Pittsburgh who forged the modern world. During its 250 year history Pittsburgh's inventors, industrialists, abolitionists, union activists, musicians, sports heroes, educators, doctors, and blue-collar workers fought and struggled to improve life on this planet. The contributions of leaders, crusaders, and innovators such as Martin Delany, George Vashon, Crystal Eastman, George Westinghouse, Stephen Foster, Jonas Salk, Phil Murray, Earl "Fatha" Hines, and Kenny Clarke changed the world.
Inspired by historian Charles McCollester's forth coming book of Pittsburgh history, Mike Stout has composed a CD of songs commemorating the hard working people of uncommon valor who shaped Pittsburgh and the world. Celebrated are the Pittsburghers who risked their livelihoods and lives to battle for the end of slavery, civil rights, worker safety, child labor laws, the 40 hour work week, fair wages, freedom, and justice. Mike Stout sings the stories of unsung heroes from Pittsburgh's past.
Celebrated in song are abolistionist Martin Delany, boxer Billy Conn along with labor leaders Fannie Sellins (written by Anne Feeney), Crystal Eastman, The Cotton Mill Workers, Monsignor Charles Own Rice, and Sean George.
The 8,000 McKees Rocks immigrant workers who struck for worker safer and equitable pay are remembered in "Blood on the Rocks". In 1909 the dreaded Coal and Iron Police invaded Mckees Rocks to break the strike and a two hour gun battle erupted in which six strikers and five constables were killed, and more than fifty were wounded.
The folkie fiddle flavored tune "Homestead Town" recalls the Glory Boom Town - the forge of the universe - where the union took on the Pinkertons and the streets where full of people in the middle of the night. In the Dylanesque song "When the Heyday Was Here" Stout remembers the winning fights for democracy and workers rights in Pittsburgh and exclaims even through the mills and the unions are gone they can't take back the history and accomplishment we made here.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEELER NATION