Sunday, August 06, 2017

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Pick up the fiddle
by Julie Carter

Get out the fiddle, strike up the bow. For those of you old enough to recall the days in rural America after World War II and young enough to remember your parents in those times, the memories may set your foot to tapping.

Since about forever I’d say, dancing in the country has been a social culture that brought levity to times of hard work and hard living. History documents both in word and sketch, the moments of cowboy dancing around the campfire. Some cowboy dances a jig with the aproned camp cookie while a lively tune is belted out of a harmonica or strummed from a guitar.

After the war, those country boys came home changed by what they lived and what they had seen. Country dances helped give them a way to reconnect to the people and lives they had left behind.

The cities moved into the bobby sox, loafer and jukebox era that was fueled by the music from Broadway musicals like Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun and South Pacific. In the backwoods, hills and the plains of the West, the music culture was full of fiddle tunes that formed an important base for the contemporary versions of bluegrass, Western swing and country.

I remember the community dances at the old Grange Hall. The neighbors would come, those that could play a musical instrument would and those that could sing, did so. Kids ran in and out the door while parents danced. Babies slept on pallets in the corner, or as my siblings and I did later in the night, bedded down in the back of a Studebaker station wagon.

There was a fiddle, a couple of guitars, piano, harmonica and occasionally an accordion to round out the music source. My dad didn't always know the words to the songs, but he could yodel, so that was his contribution. As the night wore on, and there was no closing time, the fun would kick up a notch as silly songs were created on the spot.

My parents courted going to country dances in a dancehall converted from an old one-room schoolhouse. In later years, they rarely missed the dances that were held in the school gymnasium sponsored by the town firemen or the saddle club.

Dee Ford and Joe Delk
I grew up with the sounds of the Hanks (Snow, Locklin, Thompson and Williams) twanging in my head and feeding my love of the music. Jimmie Rodgers of "Honeycomb" and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" fame, Ernest Tubb, Faron Young, Marty Robbins, Jim Reeves, Ferlin Husky, Ray Price, Sonny James, Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Slim Whitman ... you get the idea.

The cowboys of that era tell about riding 10-12 miles to a dance, dancing all night, and then riding back to the ranch to work. Some of them were the musical talent for the dance, some of them went to find the pretty girls, but they all went for the fun. It was the social uplifting their hard working lives needed.

When the trend moved the "party" to the honky tonks and bars, the dances held in halls, schools and barns dwindled and changed, except in the country where the families were held together by hard work, family values and simple lives.

I'm fortunate enough to still live in a place in the West where a country dance isn't all that foreign and yes, it is still a family affair.

The recipe for fun is still just as good today as it was then. Everything goes better with a country dance. “Pick up your fiddle and rosin your bow. An' twist 'em up a tune called Turkey in the Straw.”


Julie, toe-tapping every day, can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com

If you enjoy the type of old time fiddle and dance music played at those country dances then you need to have this cd in your collection:


 And if you or someone you know loves to dance then you will certainly enjoy Music for  Those That Come To Dance by The Delk Band. You can check out the band and their interesting history at their website 



And in the meantime you can listen to Ranch Radio's fiddle playlist

 

2 comments:

Joe Delk said...

Julie,

Thank you for remembering the significance of country dances in shaping all our lives. My Grandma Delk would talk of the times that, as a young girl, she would ride most of the day to be able to dance all night and then ride home the next day. My brother, Jimmy, sister, Linda and I grew up helping with ranch work on the weekends. Saturday nights, though, we would usually have to get cleaned up and go with mama and daddy to a dance somewhere, usually the Mimbres Roundup Lodge. Of course daddy always played for the dance ... oh how he loved to watch people dance. It didn't seem special to us, it was just something we did. I realize now just how special it was. Thanks again Julie.

Julie Carter said...

Thank you Joe --it's my honor to revive such good memories for so many!!! And you and your family help keep that special time alive!! You are right, we didn't realize how special it was, it was just life that we thought everybody lived. How wrong we were!!! Thanks so much for your comment! Makes it very special