(This page is a part of the contradance pages maintained by Kiran Wagle)

a few of Kiran's Favorite Tunes

(This article was originally posted to the Usenet newsgroup <rec.folk-dancing>.)

Robin Loeffler <tenp@earthlink.net> asks:

If you are a caller, do you have any specific tunes you really like for a specific dance? Or, if you are a musician or a dancer, are there any tunes that when they are played lift the dancers right off their feet?

What a wonderful chance to review my tunes! Thanks Robin. I'm quite curious to see what tunes are liked by people from various parts of the country, too.

I like to match tunes to dances, but I don't have any particular attachment to specific tune-dance matches. I do like to call dances that fit certain favorite tunes or medleys--The Brumley Brae, Skippin' Cat & Ragtime Annie, for example--but I have a variety of dances to fit the tunes.

Here are a few tunes I don't hear often enough. (I won't list favorites that I hear all the time.) Some of them, of course, have to be straightened to work for contras. Others are not two-part tunes, but any competent caller should be able to handle that problem. And a few of them aren't contradance tunes at all. :-)

It recently occurred to me that many classic dance tunes are no longer being played for contradancing. Golden Slippers, Red Wing, Turkey in the Straw, Arkansas Traveller, Old Joe Clark, and yes, even Ragtime Annie have all fallen into disfavor, to name just a few examples.

New additions:

Bell Cow (sp.?)

Fleur de Mandrigore (sp.?)

Apparently this has been recorded by La Bouttine Souriante.

Jan's Tune

Greasy Coat

Come Along Jody by Tex Logan (?)

The Cellphone Tune By C.W. Abbott

C.W. plays with the Groovemongers, from upstate New York.

Tuba City Truck Stop By ? (I should know this!)

Vladimir's Steamboat by Jay Ungar

Cantrell's Retreat by Mark Burhans

On Steppin' on Cords by the Hotpoint Stringband
Definitely not played often enough--many callers consider it too slow for dancing, but with the right dance and dancers it's the sweetest.

Gideon

on Chickens don't Roost Too High by the Red Mountain White Trash

Benton's Dream by Benton Flippen (sp.?)

Arkansas Traveller

Old Joe Clark

Red Wing

Goodbye Liza Jane

Greasy Coat

West Fork Gals

If you know any other recordings of these, let me know.

Arkansas Traveller

Bell Cow (sp.?)

Benton's Dream by Benton Flippen (sp.?)

Buck Mountain

on Tripping Up Stairs by Tripping Up Stairs

Buffalo Gals

on Lost Boy by Bruce Molsky
on Shakin' Down the Acorns volume 1 by Tony Elman

Buzzard's Breath by Art Shuster

on Late for the Dance by the String Beings

Cantrell's Retreat by Mark Burhans

On Steppin' on Cords by the Hotpoint Stringband
Definitely not played often enough--many callers consider it too slow for dancing, but with the right dance and dancers it's the sweetest.

Cherokee Shuffle (straightened)

(I think the extra two bars are a dreary afterthought to an energetic tune.)
A straight version is on Wild Hog by Pigs Eye Landing
a crooked one is on The Good Old Days are Here by Geoff Seitz
also on The Hammered Dulcimer by Bill Spence and Fennig's All-Star band

Chinkapin Hunting

on On the Shoulders of Giants by Rhys Jones
on Second Story by Open House

Come Along Jody by Tex Logan

Devil's Dream

on Wild Hog by Pigs Eye Landing
on Shakin' Down the Acorns volume 1 by Tony Elman

Dick Gossip's

on Tone Roads by Wild Asparagus

Drunkard's Reel

on Carrion On by the Buzzard Rock Bayou Boys

Evil Reel by Tom Troszak

on Music for Dancing by the String Beings

Forked Deer

on Goin' to Town by Johnson, Clark, & Bealle. This is a classic recording, with notes on both the tunes and the early days of Midwestern dancing, and their performance of this tune has a chord change that turna a great tune into an even better tune.
on On the Shoulders of Giants by Rhys Jones

Fleur de Mandrigore (sp.?)

Apparently this has been recorded by La Bouttine Souriante.

George Booker

on Uncle Gizmo by Uncle Gizmo

Gideon

on Chickens don't Roost Too High by the Red Mountain White Trash

Goodbye Liza Jane

Golden Slippers

on Shakin' Down the Acorns volume 1 by Tony Elman
on The Hammered Dulcimer by Bill Spence and Fennig's All-Star band
with calls, on When the Work's All Done by Bob Dalsemer, Peter Barnes, Steve Hickman and Bill Tomczak

Grapevine Twist

A straight version is on Wild Hog by Pigs Eye Landing

Gravois Creek Pump by Geoff Seitz

on The Good Old Days are Here by Geoff Seitz

Haphazard Breakdown by Julia McCrory

on Late for the Dance by the String Beings

Hog Wallow by Erik Sessions

This one's definitely not a dance tune, but it's a masterpiece of 20th-century classical music, on Wild Hog by Pigs Eye Landing

Icehouse by Matt Gordon and

now recorded on the new Fiddle Puppets CD, I believe.

John Lover's Gone

on Tripping Up Stairs by Tripping Up Stairs

It Ain't the Heat, it's the Humidity by Erik Sessions

on Drunken Billy Goat by Pigs Eye Landing

Jan's Tune

Jeff Davis

on Late for the Dance by the String Beings

Late for the Dance

on Swingtime for Bonzo by the Velcro Monkeys
on Late for the Dance by the String Beings

Leather Britches

on Southern Ramble by Ralph Blizard and the New Southern Ramblers
on Music for Dancing by the String Beings

Lit Splickety by Mark Simos

on Race the River Jordan by Mark Simos. This is one of my two favorite CDs of 1995.

Lullaby for Liza by David Cahn

A non-contradance tune on Greasy Coat by the Rodney Miller Band

Mississippi Sawyer

on Southern Ramble by Ralph Blizard and the New Southern Ramblers
on The Hammered Dulcimer by Bill Spence and Fennig's All-Star band

Muddy Road to Kansas

on Goin' to Town by Johnson, Clark, & Bealle

Music for a Found Harmonium by Simon Jeffes

Simon Jeffes says of it, "composed in Kyoto, Japan in 1982 on a harmonium found sitting on top of a pile of discarded builders wood."
on Take Two by Mando Mafia
on Celtic Fiddle Festival by Kevin Burke, Johnny Cunningham, and Christian Lematre

Nail that Catfish to the Tree by Steve Rosen

on Swingtime for Bonzo by the Velcro Monkeys
on a tape by the Volo Bogtrotters I don't yet have

North Carolina Breakdown

on Hillbillies from Mars by the HIllbillies from Mars
on On the Shoulders of Giants by Rhys Jones

Oyster River

on Tripping Up Stairs by Tripping Up Stairs

Pow Wow by Rodney Miller

on Greasy Coat by the Rodney Miller Band

Pulaski Skyway by Sam Zygmuntowicz

on Grand Picnic by Grand Picnic

Puncheon Floor

on Tripping Up Stairs by Tripping Up Stairs

Ragtime Annie

on Swinging on a Gate by Tony Elman
on The Hammered Dulcimer by Bill Spence and Fennig's All-Star band

Red Wing

Reunion Jig by Russ Barenburg

on Greasy Coat by the Rodney Miller Band

Rhinoceros for Sue by Sam Bartlett

A non-contradance tune on Call of the Wild by Wild Asparagus

Rock-A-Bye Baby by Daniel Steinberg

When Daniel and the Hillbillies played this tune at the Dance Romance in Durham, they generated more energy on the dance floor in five minutes - and on Sunday afternoon! - than most bands can produce in a whole evening. It was astounding.
on Hillbillies from Mars by the HIllbillies from Mars

Rockabilly Reel by Rodney Miller

on Greasy Coat by the Rodney Miller Band

Seneca Square Dance

on The Good Old Days are Here by Geoff Seitz

Sequatchie Valley

on Fire in the Dumpster by The Red Mountain White Trash

Seventeen Days in Georgia

on Heatin' Up the Hall by Yankee Ingenuity
on Goin' to Town by Johnson, Clark, & Bealle

Sligo Creek by Danny Noveck

on Call of the Wild by Wild Asparagus

Tam Lin

on Music for Dancing by the String Beings

Turkey in the Straw

on Music for Dancing by the String Beings

The Brumley Brae by WIlliam McPherson

on Uncle Gizmo by Uncle Gizmo

The Cellphone Tune

By C.W. Abbott, who plays with the Groovemongers, from upstate New York.

The High Part of the Road

on Uncle Gizmo by Uncle Gizmo
on Tone Roads by Wild Asparagus

The White Leaf

on Honk if you Honk by the Clayfoot Strutters

Thyme on Our Hands by Erik Sessions

on Wild Hog by Pigs Eye Landing

Tuba City Truck Stop By ? (I should know this!)

Vladimir's Steamboat by Jay Ungar

Waiting for Nancy by Curtis Carlisle Bouterse

Curtis also wrote Nixon's Farewell. Unfortunately, the name is much better than the tune.
on Wild Hog by Pigs Eye Landing
on Early Bird Special by the Boiled Buzzards

Ways of the World

on The Good Old Days are Here by Geoff Seitz

Wild Hog in the Woods

on On the Shoulders of Giants by Rhys Jones

Wizard's Walk by Jay Ungar

Jay's daughter Ruthie Ungar wrote a dance (collected in CDSS Gems) for this tune; this is the best dance-tune match I know. It has now been recorded twice, on Moving Cloud Orchestra by Moving Cloud Orchestra, and on Rodney Miller's new CD whose name I don't know.

Enough for now. Got to pack. See you at Sugar Hill, I hope.

Kiran "MIDI archive, anyone?" <entropy@io.com>

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Last updated on July 31, 1996 by entropy@io.com (Kiran Wagle)