Hutchinson Family Singers - History - Success

Success

The Hutchinsons performed across New England in 1842, taking in as much as $130 per performance. In 1843, Jesse wrote "The Old Granite State", a song about the Hutchinson family, their origins in New Hampshire, and their itinerant lifestyle. The song became their signature number.

American newspapers of the time were trumpeting "native talent", and critics responded favorably to the Hutchinsons' early concerts, although they did express misgivings about the group's song selection. After the Hutchinson Family Singers' first New York City concert on May 13, 1843, the New York Tribune wrote:

The Hutchinson family gave a concert on Saturday evening and acquitted themselves quite well. They . . . know how to make music, decidedly, though some of their songs are not well chosen either to gratify the audience or exhibit their peculiar powers. We wish they would take care to favor the unscientific public with the words of their songs distinctly. Russell does so, and it is to thousands one of the best points of his singing.

When the Hutchinsons' advertised in the Herald on May 13, 1843 that their program featured "their most popular Quartettes, Trios, Solos, such as have not failed to please fashionable audiences in Boston and many other cities and towns in New England," the Tribune responded:

They need not fear in New York to give us songs embodying Sentiment as well as those of a descriptive or humorous character. We trust they will be heard again and more than once in our city; for we are sure there are thousands among us who would hear them with signal satisfaction.

After a performance at the New York Society Library on May 17, the Tribune was more approving:

Their style of singing is admirable—simple, sweet, and full of mountain melody. Their voices are all rich and dear, and their whole execution is in a most chaste and grateful style . . . . Mr. Hutchinson not only sang but acted it—and that in a manner not only perfectly chaste and without offending delicacy and decorum but with clear adherence to truth and great effect . . . .

The Tribune still disapproved of their song choices, asking "How can they choose so badly?" and claiming that poems set to music and rehashed songs from other composers with only a few new pieces were not good enough.

Nevertheless, the Hutchinsons were a hit, the first American close-harmony quartet to see such success. They adopted the name Tribe of Jesse after further touring in 1843. Imitators appeared, and the Hutchinsons even toured with one of these, the Luca family, in 1859. Four-part harmony became an important component of all American popular music. Minstrel show troupes compared themselves to the Hutchinsons. In 1844, the Congo Minstrels advertised that "their songs are sung in Harmony in the style of the Hutchinson Family." Other minstrels parodied the group. The Harmoneon Family Singers (later the Boston Harmoneons) wore powdered wigs and faces and called themselves the Albino Minstrels or the Albino Family in what was supposed to be a blackface show.

In 1845, the family toured Great Britain. Meanwhile, Caleb, Joshua, Rhoda, and Zephaniah Hutchinson toured the United States under the name Home Branch of the Hutchinson Family. When the original group returned, they angrily put an end to the Home Branch. The Hutchinsons added several original songs at this time.