American Trilogy

It was Mickey Newbury who first put together the arrangement in 1970 and recorded in 1971.  He said he did it for his own healing one night, then thought it should go to an audience.


Underneath the video at youtube is the following.

Mickey Newbury is a songwriter most famous for a song he arranged, but did not write. One night in Los Angeles, at a time of national distress over war and race issues in the U.S.A., Newbury spontaneously combined a southern anthem (written by a northerner, D.D. Emmett), a northern anthem (written by a southerner, William Steffe), and a third song that was originally a Jamaican slave song (All My Sorrows). In the audience that night were many celebrities, Odetta, Kristofferson and Streisand among them. The trio of songs brought tears to Odetta's eyes. It came to be called An American Trilogy, and would be adopted by Elvis Presley as the centerpiece of his later concerts. This clip is an extra from LIVE AT THE HERMITAGE, the new Mickey Newbury DVD, and features Marie Rhines on violin. The clip is uploaded with the permission of the Newbury family, and the DVD is available in the cd store at www.mickeynewbury.com

More can be found about it here.