North Carolina

The official state song of North Carolina, The Old North State, happens to be a waltz. The full story of the song is remarkably well documented in a "study lesson" written by Mrs. E.E. Randolph in 1942, now available in the Digital Collection of the State Library of North Carolina.  The short version of the story is that the melody was brought to North Carolina by some traveling Swiss bell ringers in 1835. William Gaston, a judge from Raleigh, liked the tune and immediately wrote a set of words, celebrating his home state of North Carolina.  The first known published version was a piano and voice arrangement by R. Culver published by George Willig in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1844.  The arrangement commonly heard today was done by Mrs. E.E. Randolph in 1926 (yes, the same Mrs. Randolph who wrote the history of the song) and it was that version which was made the state song by the North Carolina legislature in 1927.

While North Carolinians have been singing The Old North State as the state song since Gaston wrote it in 1835, the first known recording is a symphonic version played by the North Carolina Symphony conducted by Ben Swalin. You can hear it in the video below. While the video dates the performance as 1927, that date is questionable since Swalin became the conductor of the North Carolina Symphony only in 1939.

The video below shows the The Old North State as it is more normally heard, performed here by the students of Coltrane Webb Elementary in Concord, North Carolina.

At just about the same time that William Gaston and R. Culver were creating The Old North State, Gustave Blessner wrote a waltz for piano which he dedicated to Miss T. Neal of St. Marys Hall, North Carolina.  He called the tune Carolina Waltz and it may be the earliest Carolina waltz of all. Not much is known of Mr. Blessner. The Petrucci Music Library, which has 26 of his compositions, reports that in 1869 he lived in Canandagua, NY and taught music at the Ontario Female Seminary. There is a copy of the original sheet music of his waltz in the digital library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  You can hear a computer generated rendition of the waltz in the video below.

The most famous Carolina waltz is clearly Carolina Moon by Joe Burke (music) and Benny Davis (lyrics). Does the "Carolina" in Carolina Moon refer to North Carolina or South Carolina? No one seems to know.  In fact, both states claim the waltz celebrates their state. This blog will remain neutral and list the song (as well as other ambiguous Carolina waltzes) for both. Burke and Davis wrote the song in 1924 but it was not recorded until 1928.

It is widely reported that Gene Austin made the first recording of Carolina Moon on December 10, 1928. That was indeed the first released recording of Carolina Moon but the Discography of American Historical Recordings reveals that Andrew Lawrence recorded Carolina Moon, probably in the same studio, about two weeks earlier, on November 26th, but the recording was a test or audition, never meant to be released. Austin's recording was a big hit and remained at the top of the hit parade for fourteen weeks until it was displaced by another Joe Burke tune, Tiptoe through the Tulips. You can hear Austin's recording in the video below.

There were at least a dozen other versions of Carolina Moon released as recordings in the 1920's and early '30's but the song never went out of style. In the 1940's the song became famous as the radio show theme song for Irish tenor, Morton Downey.  According to the Discography of Historic American Recordings Downey recorded Carolina Moon in a New York studio on October 5, 1931 for use in a United Artists movie and it was never released as a record. But you can still hear Downey's Carolina Moon from a November, 1945 radio broadcast of the NK Musical Showroom. You can hear that broadcast in the video below thanks to Keith Helsley's excellent Retro Radio Podcast.

Carolina Moon has become a "standard" with recordings by many well known singers extending up to today.  Those singers include Gene Autry, Parry Como, Kate Smith, Connie Francis, Dean Martin, the Chordettes, Jim Reeves, and many others.

There have been several waltzes written which specifically recognize North Carolina:

One of the earliest known waltzes to specifically celebrate North Carolina is North Carolina Moon written and recorded by the Callahan Brothers (Homer and Walter, although they recorded as Bill and Joe, respectively) on January 3, 1934 on the Melotone label (13018 B). The brothers were from Madison county in western North Carolina. North Carolina Moon was recorded on their second recording session in the ARC studios in New York City (their first ever recording session was the day before in the same studio). The brothers remained active performers, even appearing in movies, into the 1950's.

Clint Alphin celebrates his North Carolina roots in North Carolina Waltz which appears on his most recent album, Postmodern Man, on his own ClinAlph label. There are two versions available on YouTube - one from a May, 2012 appearance at the Southeast Regional Folk Alliance conference in Montreat, NC and the other from his appearance on the TV show, Mountain Morning, on Park City TV from Park City, Utah which you can see below.

Bill Monroe is a recurring figure in state waltzes.  He wrote the famous Kentucky Waltz.  He wrote the not-so-famous Mississippi Waltz and he inspired the most famous of state waltzes, Tennessee Waltz. For North Carolina waltzes, he plays a different role. As a young, single mandolin player Monroe had an eye for the pretty girl and he met one, Ruby Elma Polk, after a concert in Norwood, North Carolina in 1943.  Mutual attraction, opportunity and biology led nine months later to the birth Gloria Jean Polk. Gloria Jean showed early musical talent and grew up to become the bluegrass singer/songwriter known as Carolina Rose.  She wrote about her life in the book The Road from Gloria Jean to Carolina Rose and according to the book Carolina Bluegrass: A High Lonesome History a movie of her life has been planned. You can find evidence of that movie (and an autobiographical song), which appears to be still in the funding stage here. In 2017 she was inducted into the Independent Country Gospel Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame, joining her famous father. She has recorded eleven albums, many of them contain autobiographical songs, including, perhaps, her own Waltz of North Carolina:

Joe Collins, from Shelby, North Carolina, is a pastor, a dulcimer builder/player/teacher and a singer/song writer.  His Carolina Waltz is popular amongst dulcimer players.  There are at least three versions of the tune on YouTube.  A good example is the one played by Kevin Teague on an unusual dulcimer, a Gold Tone Dulciborn, in the video below.  But in order to appreciate that the song is specific to North Carolina you need to hear the lyrics as sung by Joe Collins here.

Buddy Tresize (1933-2012) was the best country musician in Australia and hailed from Bendigo, Victoria according to his YouTube profile. He sings Carolina Waltz on a privately pressed CD.  The version he sings was composed by Dick Roman and Lou Vickers in 1948.  It is also known as Charlotte Belle  (the lyrics mention "my Charlotte belle") which is the clue that makes this waltz specific to North Carolina.  It is just a guess, but Tresize probably learned the song from a 1950 Australian recording by Tim McNamara (Rodeo Records 10-0021). In the U.S., the song has also been recorded by Dick Thomas and his Nashville Ramblers. Here is Tresize's version:

Caleb and Sara Davis from Mocksville, North Carolina perform as the folk/bluegrass duo His & Hers throughout the state of North Carolina. They perform their own original music and one of their best is Carolina Waltz.  In a private communication, the Davis's confirm that their Carolina Waltz celebrates their home state of North Carolina. You can find it on their most recent album, Family Land or listen here. But, the live performance below, captured at the Muddy Creek Music Hall in Bethania, North Carolina in April, 2019, provides a better sense of the musicians themselves.

The absence of lyrics makes it difficult to know if a Carolina waltz relates to North or South Carolina but a private communication with composer Buck Brown made it clear that he was thinking of North Carolina when he wrote the waltz.  Brown is not only a composer, he is a singer/songwriter and a well known jazz guitar educator who is responsible for 18 books/CD's in the Alfred Music catalog. Brown was a member of Nils Lofgren's band and acoustic duo in the 1990's and is currently an active performer in Nashville where he currently resides.  His website has a full "CD" of his instrumental music which includes the version of his Carolina Waltz featured in the video below.

Moving into the category of waltzes which could be claimed by North or South Carolina, first by looking at some tin pan alley type waltzes which were most popular in the 1920's and 1930's. Many of these were popularized in piano sheet music as well as on the 78 rpm records which became affordable and common in that era.

1918 is not quite into the 1920's but it was in that year that Erwin R. Schmidt wrote what became a very popular waltz titled Carolina Sunshine. Lyrics to the song were provided by Walter Hirsch. Sheet music for the song can be seen here. It was recorded by at least four different performers in 1919 - an instrumental version by the Joseph C. Smith Orchestra on Victor 18646, Vernon Dalhart on Edison Disks (50595), the Six Brown Brothers on Emerson 1055,  and on three different labels by the Sterling Trio (Albert Campbell, Henry Burr (aka Harry McClaskey) and John H. Meyer) -  Victor (18612), Columbia (A2770) and Paramount (33019). You can hear a piano roll version here but the best way to appreciate the song is to listen to the performance by the Sterling trio in the video below.

Edwin R. Schmidt, composer of the Carolina Sunshine above, must have loved Carolina because he wrote a second Carolina waltz in 1925 titled Dreamy Carolina Moon. Evans Lloyd wrote the lyrics.  Copies of the sheet music an occasionally be found on Amazon. It was recorded at least four times - by Carl Fenton's Orchestra on Brunswick (2938), by The Denza Dance Band (led by Ben Selvin) on Columbia (3781), by the Miami Marimba Band on Brunswick (A 303) and by vocalist Vernon Dalhart and the Cavaliers (also led by Ben Selvin) on Columbia (390 D). The latter has been captured on YouTube:

There are two waltzes that carry the title Carolina Sweetheart. The earliest (1925) was composed by Billy James and was recorded at least six times - by the B.F. Goodrich Silvertown Cord Orchestra with vocals by the Silver-Masked Tenor (Joseph M. White) on Victor (19798), by Bob Haring and his Orchestra on Cameo (739), by the Castlewood Marimba Band (this is exactly the same band as the Miami Marimba Band - they may have recorded under at least seven different names) on Brunswick (2986), by Jack Stillman's Orchestra on Edison (51638), by and for release in Australia a version by Wood and Turner on Grand Pree (18472).  You can hear the B.F. Goodrich Silvertown Cord Orchestra version here and the Castlewood Marimba Band version here and for your listening pleasure, the six version which was recorded by Lanes Dance band (led by Bob Haring) on the Lincoln label (2366) can be viewed below.

Parallel in time to those tin pan alley Carolina waltzes but quite different in style were hillbilly or country waltzes which were recorded but rarely distributed as sheet music. There was some national distribution of the records and some airplay on powerful country radio stations but most of these waltzes were created and stayed in the deep South.

A first example is the second waltz titled Carolina Waltz which was recorded in 1936 by the Callahan Brothers - the same Callahan Brothers who recorded North Carolina Moon in 1934 (see above). They probably wrote the song also since no composer is credited on the record. You may find references on the web that suggest this song was sung by the Dixon Brothers. Those are just wrong - the result of mis-identification from a compilation record that included both the Dixon and Callahan Brothers.

 
The Georgia Yellow Hammers (note: Yellowhammers are woodpeckers native to Georgia) were a quartet of musicians from Gordon county Georgia in the 1920's.  They wrote much of their own music and recorded 36 songs on the Victor label. They are recognized today as a foundation band of the "old time" sound.  There is even a current Georgia Yellow Hammers band which has honored them by resurrecting their name and performing much of their old music . Two of the members of the original Yellow Hammers, Charles Earnest Moody, Jr. and Bud Landress, wrote a waltz titled My Carolina Girl which was released on the Victor (20943) label in 1927.  That record was their best selling record ever (although it may have been due to the song on the flip side, The Picture on the Wall). You can hear it below.

In 1927, Clayton "Pappy" McMichen wrote a waltz titled My Carolina Home.  McMichen was a contest winning fiddler and extremely versatile musician.  If you have never heard of him, go back two sentences and click that link on his name. Then stop and thank another remarkable musician, Richard L. Matteson, Jr., for preserving the memory of McMichen and so many other early bluegrass musicians in his Bluegrass Messenger website.  At the age of 18, McMichen formed his first band, the Lick the Skillet band, in Atlanta, Georgia. A young guitarist, Riley Puckett, was one of the four members of that band.  The band was a local success and made some local recordings but it wasn't
until 1926 that McMichen got a big break when Columbia records invited McMichen and Puckett to record in their Atlanta studios.  Recording under the name of Bob Nichols (probably to avoid a contract problem with a local record company) McMichen and Puckett recorded My Carolina Home.  You can hear that original recording in the video below.

You may note that both of the two above waltzes celebrating Carolina come from Georgia - so does this next one. The Scottdale String Band was created in Scottdale, Georgia by four musicians - Barney Pritchard, Marvin Head, Belvie Freeman and Charlie Simmons - who all worked in a cotton mill in that town. The band usually performed as a trio with guitarists Pritchard and Freeman being constants joined either by Freeman or Simmons on mandolin-banjo. Many of the tunes they recorded were novelty numbers but Carolina Glide, which was originally recorded in 1927 on Okeh (45142) is a straight forward waltz which is still played today by groups such as this Dutch ukulele duo and the late Jon Bekoff and his protege Nate Paine in the video below which is shared to make sure you do not miss the perfect harmony this well-matched pair creates once they get going.

You can find the original Carolina Glide in the wonderful Arhooley LP reissue of the Scottdale String Bands recordings titled Old Folks Better Go To Bed.  And you can hear it now in the YouTube video below.

Moving on to waltzes celebrating the Carolinas from the mid-20th century to current times ...

Clyde Moody was known as the Hillbilly Waltz King. Some of his best known waltzes were Whispering Pines, Tennessee Rose, Shenandoah Waltz (his only million seller), Dark Midnight and Carolina Waltz.  Moody was born in Cherokee, North Carolina and is a member of the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. It is a good bet than his Carolina Waltz, recorded in 1948 on King (706) refers to North Carolina but listen to the lyrics below and decide if think it refers to North or South Carolina.

Another Carolina Waltz that would good make a good North Carolina bet is the one by banjo player Andrew Eversole since he is from Greensboro, North Carolina.  You will find the bluegrassy tune on his 2008 album, Creature.  Over the next ten years, Eversole has moved into a Ry Cooder stage and has taken his banjo around the world and melded his blue grass chops with world music to produce some very fine music through his Banjo Earth project. But his Carolina Waltz is very much local, not world music.

Jim Hardin appears to be from South Carolina according to the minimal available information about him found by the usual search engines.  He may or may not be part of a band once known as Jim Hardin and the Musical Erupters.  He may or may not have been part of a the gospel quartet known as the Bluegrass Statesman and he is definitely not the tragic folksinger figure, Tim Hardin. But, his 2008 album Bluegrass on the Bayou definitely contains a nice song titled Carolina Waltz:

Chuck "Coyote" Larson, lead singer for the Snake Oil Cowboys lives on the outer banks of North Carolina but has roots in Oklahoma and has spent almost as many years at sea as he has on land. In the 60's he was a rock musician with a number of bands that almost made it big. He sang and played guitar for those bands but his contribution was song writing - something he still does well. After rock, he spent more than twenty years rolling on the seas with the merchant marine before retiring to the beach in North Carolina where he rejoined old friend Robbie Vernon to form the Snake Oil Cowboys. Today he owns the Swampworks Recording Studio in Kitty Hawk, NC and runs the Blind Weasel record company.  The video below captures Larson and Vernon along with Muskrat Reams on the pedal steel playing Larson's Carolina Waltz at a 2015 concert for the Tidewater Friends of Acoustic Music in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Brent Stewart saw the need for a new Carolina waltz and created one.  There are no hints as to North or South Carolina nor are there any hints about Stewart's musical life. Here he is, at home, sitting in his desk chair playing his banjo and singing his own Carolina Waltz:

The information on Brent Stewart was encyclopedic compared to the information on the next creator/singer of the next Carolina Waltz.  His YouTube name is "B", he likes horses (based on the photos with his songs) and he is a singer/songwriter with a home studio. Here is his Carolina Waltz:

There is one more YouTube video which carries the title Carolina Waltz although the lyrics do not seem to relate to the title.  Probably written by Melissa Hyman since she sings it in three different videos - the easiest-to-listen-to version is here.

There are three additional instrumental versions of Carolina Waltz, none of which seem to refer specifically to North or South Carolina.  The first was written by Roger Campbell and is played by Canadian fiddler, Bruce Osborne.  You will find quite a collection of fiddle tunes played by Osborne on his YouTube Channel.  He plays viola in this video and the graphics recognize both North and South Carolina.

The Oklahoma country star, Johnny Bond, will be encountered later in this blog because he wrote and performed a hit song titled Oklahoma Waltz but he also wrote a tune titled Carolina Waltz.  He recorded Carolina Waltz on the a Columbia 45 rpm record (cat. 4-21424) in 1955.  A digital copy has not been found to share on this blog but curiously, a Danish trumpet player, Arne Lamberth, has recorded a big band version of Carolina Waltz, which the liner notes say was composed by Johnny Bond. Could it be the same song? Until a copy of the Bond original is found, all we can do is listen to the Lamberth version below and wonder.

Johnny Tanner is a singer/songwriter and artist from South Carolina.  He is also a very good guitar player.  Almost all of his music includes a vocal but he occasionally writes a pure instrumental which is the case for his version of Carolina Waltz which you can hear below. Given his residence it is a good bet that the song celebrates South Carolina but until that is firmly determined, it is included in this non-state-specific section of the blog.

A number of waltzes celebrating the Carolina's have been recorded but no digital version of the recordings are currently available.  These include:

In 1951, Uncle Harve's Ragtime Wranglers recorded North Carolina Waltz written by Harve Spivey and Harold (Lazy) Donelson on Cardinal (1014).  Donelson also provided vocals on the record. The Ragtime Wranglers were located in Miami and provided western swing music to the south Florida area from the 1940's to the 1960's.

In 1952, Cliffie Stone and his Orchestra recorded Carolina Waltz written by David Coleman on Capitol (1960).

Sometime in the late 1980's Morgan Ruppe of Clover, South Carolina wrote and sang Carolina Waltz on what appears to be his own record label, Hummingbird of Clover (MC-111).

In the late 1960's, Rural Rhythms issued two collections of waltzes featuring Clarence "Tater" Tate, a well known bluegrass fiddler, and other musicians: Beautiful Waltzes (RRBW203) and More Favorite Waltzes (RRCT-220).  Both of those records contained Carolina Waltz although it is unknown whose version of Carolina Waltz was covered.  No evidence was found that the Carolina Waltz versions had been previously released as singles.

The Library of Congress contains the sheet music for La Carolina Waltz by J. Dodsley Humphreys, published by John F. Nunns, New York in 1843.  There is no hint if it relates to North or South Carolina but if it were to be described as a state waltz it would have to relate to South Carolina since North Carolina did not become a state until 1879 - it was still a colony in 1843.

A search using the Internet Archive showed the following issued copyrights which apparently never recorded.

1921, Carolina, waltz. son, words and melody by V.J. Brando.
1924, Dreams of Carolina, waltz. Words and melody to John Arthur Mills
1926, Take me back to dear old Carolina, waltz. Words and music by A. L. Allred
1930, Dreamy Carolina, waltz. Words and music by Irving Knight and Julian Dey
1935, When it's raining down in Carolina, waltz. Words by P. Preslar and S. Adelman and melody by             B. Adelman.
1935, Dear old Carolina, waltz. Words to Anna M. Whelan. Music to J. Schatenstein and A.M.                   Whelan
1951, (Last night they played the) Carolina Waltz. Words and music to Jimmy Melvin Dall
1960, The Carolina Waltz. Words to Patricia Rathbone. Words to George Leddy
1977, Carolina Waltz. D.B. Johnson

There is one recorded waltz which was not included here just because it doesn't really sound like a waltz: Carolina Sunday Waltz by Adrian Legg.

And finally, a musical score of the official North Carolina state song (which happens to be a waltz although it is rarely performed that way), The Old North State.

The above score is from Glogster.

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New York

If the title of this blog was Disco Across the States, New York would be ready with their official state song I Love New York; but, sadly, the state of New York has no official waltz.

There are quite a few waltzes celebrating New York City - from the familiar Sidewalks of New York to the obscure New York Produce Exchange Waltz - but very few celebrating the state of New York.

The best known waltz celebrating the state of New York is the Upstate New York Waltz written in 2009 by Si Kahn and Tom Chapin. The song provides a tour through twenty towns in upstate New York with plenty of smiles on the way.  The towns go by pretty fast but you can slow them down by reading the lyrics here. Chapin recorded it on his album Let the Bad Times Roll which you can hear on YouTube but Chapin's live performance below brings a little more personality to the song.

Those of a certain age remember the Weavers.  Echos of that great group still exist in the harmonies and instrumentation of the group known as Hudson Valley Sally. On their very first album, creatively titled Hudson Valley Sally, the group offered their cover version of the Kahn/Chapin Upstate New York Waltz.  You can their album version on YouTube but it is more fun watching a subset of the original five person group do it live:

Renaud Lhoest (violin and piano) joins a trio of musicians -Benoît Casen(guitar and banjo), Benjamin Gillis(violin) and Boris Iori(guitar and harmonica) to form the Belgian group, Big Sun. On their album, Big Sun, they have included a gentle waltz titled New York Waltz presumably composed by Lhoest. Surely this waltz refers to the natural beauty of the state, not to the excitement of New York City.  

Jazz pianist Soo Cho has included her composition, New York Waltz, on the CD Little Prince which you can hear on YouTube but the live performance posted below brings a little more life to the tune. It is a little difficult to hear a waltz in all those notes but Ms. Cho has been kind enough to post a score for the work and with that score in hand, you will find the trumpet and piano playing the waltz starting 3'23" into the video.  There are hints of the waltz earlier but it is deconstructed almost to the point of invisibility. See if you can hear the waltz in the video below.

Other waltzes celebrating New York for which video is not available:

Lars-Luis Linek, a German composer and blues musician who favors the harmonica, recorded New York Waltz (probably composed by Linek) on a 1996 CD titled Harmonica Trio on the EMI/selected sound label.

In the soundtrack of the movie Reds there is a waltz composed by Dave Grusin titled The New York Waltz. The piece is only slightly over a minute long and you can hear much of it here.

There is a 19th century song titled The Empire State Waltz by Otto Spahr.  It appears in advertisements for piano music of the period but a score has not yet been found.

Not included here:

A standard search on Google will suggest that the CD, America Again, by pianist Lara Downes contains New York Waltz I, II and III.  There are indeed three waltzes by New York composers on the album but none are titled New York Waltz. The CD is, nevertheless, highly recommended.

In 1978, Willie Guy Rainey was seventy-seven years old when he made made his first record, titled eponymously, Willie Guy Rainey, on the Southland label (SLP-7).  That record contains a song titled New York Waltz.  You can hear it here.  With a title like that, it should belong in this blog; but, unfortunately, it is not a waltz - it is a fine piece of stride piano in solid 4/4 time.

An Internet Archive search of copyright records found a few more:

That New York Waltz, 1922, words and music to Clinton A. Kemp
Souvenir of New York: waltz, 1938, music to Joseph Julian Michalski
The New York Waltz, 1947, words and music to Hana Senger
New York Waltz, 1955, words and music to Berthold Mayer
New York Waltz, 1958, music to Joseph Liebling
The New York Waltz, 1969, words and music to Clayton H. Warner

And finally, there is a reference to a New York Waltz by Musard in an 1868 Catalogue of the Universal Circulating Music Library, published in London.

For those who make their own music, here is a simplified score for the Upstate New York Waltz:

You can find the lyrics here.

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New Mexico

New Mexico has five state songs: the official state song, the Spanish language state song, the state ballad, the state bilingual song and the official cowboy song.  Two of those are waltzes - the Spanish language song, Asi Es Nuevo Mexico by Amadeo Lucerno, and the bilingual song, Mi Lindo Nuevo Mexico by Pablo Mares.  New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Roberto Mondragon sang Asi Es Nuevo Mexico to the New Mexico legislature in 1971 and led its adoption as the state Spanish Language song.  Lieutenant Governor Mondragon tells the story behind the song and sings it in the excellent video below by Andy Fertal.

You can hear the original version of Asi Es Nuevo Mexico as sung by the composer, Amadeo Lucerno here at the University of New Mexico Libraries' Digital Collection.

Surprisingly, no digital audio or video files of Mares' Mi Lindo Nuevo Mexico have been found although there is a melody score with lyrics to be found here.

Jay Ungar, the composer of one of the most recognized and performed waltzes of the twentieth century, Ashokan Farewell, wrote a waltz in the year 2000 for a fellow fiddler who was a frequent instructor at his Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp.  The fellow fiddler was Junior Daugherty from La Luz, New Mexico.  It was in honor of Junior's 70th birthday and he initially called it Junior's Senior Moment but later decided that a better title for the long run would be New Mexico Waltz.  In 2003, Junior recorded it on his Lights of Pinon album with its proper title, New Mexico Waltz.  You can find a score in Ungar's tune book, Catskill Mountain Waltzes and Airs. There are other recordings of Ungar's New Mexico Waltz on YouTube, but Daugherty's is the original:

There are at least four other tunes titled New Mexico Waltz on YouTube.

One of those four is special.  Written by a special person - Gair Linhart, a poet, a musician, a novelist, an artist and an organizer. Linart is one of 82 people living in the village of La Joya, New Mexico, a place he first visited in1973 from his native Cleveland, Ohio to visit a friend.  According to a profile published in Albuquerque The Magazine, he "lived the life of a troubadour" until 1984 when he moved permanently to La Joya and purchased an old adobe ruins (a 100 year old winery) which he restored. In 1989, he found his special calling when he went to work for Los Lunos Hospital and Training School for people with developmental disabilities. Inspired by the people he met there he developed a technique for tuning instruments in open C so all could play without hitting a wrong note.  Los Lunos is no longer but Linhart took his tuning technique and in 1999,  he organized and founded the non-profit Special Orchestra, open to all. They meet "whenever they can" in Albuquerque and Belen, New Mexico and have performed at many folk festivals. Others have followed Linhart's lead and organized their own Special Orchestras.  You can find everything you need to know to start one in your area at the Special Orchestra website.  Like most such non-profits, they operate on a shoestring budget. You can help with a direct donation through their website or by buying some of Linhart's books or CD's or art.

You can hear and see Linhart and his Special Orchestra perform New Mexico Waltz at the 2017 Albuquerque Folk festival in the video below.

Here's what is known about Cotton Harp. His birth name was Clyde Melvin Harp but everyone called him Cotton.  He was born in 1930, served in the Navy on the U.S.S. Sproston which was built in Orange, Texas. Cotton was married to Marlene (not sure when) and died in 2011. He started playing in bands while in the Navy and never stopped - his last band was called Cimarron. He lived in Red Bluff, California at the time of his death. He wrote and sang country music. In 1982, he recorded an album titled My Kind of Country (Frog label, LRP-401). That album contained the song New Mexico Waltz and you can hear it below.

Elliott's Ramblers played their first concert in the historic KiMo Theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1984. The Ramblers at the point consisted of Elliott Rogers on guitar and lead vocals, his wife, Janice, on bass, Wayne Shrubsall on banjo (Shrubsall has a PhD in banjos - no joke) and Gerald Larribas on mandolin. Larrisbas was later replaced by Claude Stephenson (another PhD - this one in Matachines music) to form the Ramblers that are heard in the video below. Janice and Elliot's move to Texas broke up the band as a regularly performing unit but they still come together and perform at festivals in New Mexico, the most recent one being at the 2017 Sante Fe Traditional Music Festival. The Ramblers put together two albums - the 1996, 'Til Love Comes Around and the 2003, "Live" Gospel Music Show which are still available from many sources. Rogers' New Mexico Waltz appears on that first album is as close to a classic state waltz as can be found for the state of New Mexico.

The fourth of this set of songs titled New Mexico Waltz was written by German composer Kurt Adametz who is best known for scoring television documentaries.  His New Mexico Waltz was written for the 2008 documentary, Flucht ins Ungewisse. Three versions of it (guitar, piano and ensemble) were made available in a record of the sound track for that documentary on the ORF label.  Listen to the guitar version below.

While Maryland will surely retain the title for the first state waltz as protest song (it was a protest against President Lincoln and the Union Army), The New Mexico Nuclear Waltz by Peter Neils is surely the most recent. Listen well to the words. Mr. Neils knows of what he sings - he is the former president of the Los Alamos Study Group, an important advocacy group on the topic of nuclear disarmament. You can read the full story behind the song here. Neils is from the state of Maine and returned there to record the album, Desert Dreams, which contains The New Mexico Nuclear Waltz. You can understand why he returned to Maine to make the recording if you read about Hearstudios - it sounds like an extraordinary place. Listen below.

The title of Joe Hunt's Waltz Across New Mexico Too clearly references Ernest Tubb's famous state waltz, Waltz Across Texas, but the resemblance ends at the title.  Joe's full name was Joel Timothy Hunt but for most of his career he was known as "Little Joe" Hunt.  His career took from a job as the "America's fastest banjo player" on Eddie Arnold's TV show to appearances on the Grand Old Opry and the Louisiana Hayride. In 2009 he was added to the Arkansas's Walk of Fame (he called Arkadelphia home). He wrote many songs including Waltz Across New Mexico Too which is one of fourteen songs on Hunt's Easy Country album issued in 2006. The songs are not classic country but they sound like it with a few exceptions where a synthesizer set to "senior citizen mode" is added to Hunt's usual western combo - sadly one of those exceptions is Waltz Across New Mexico Too.

As a result of this writer's sloth, you have missed the 2018 Big Barn Dance Music Festival in Taos, New Mexico - it was held September 6,7 and 8.  You might have heard Michael Hearne and his band, South by Southwest, perform New Mexico Rain, a fine waltz written by Hearne who is also the organizer and prime mover behind this festival.  New Mexico Rain was written when he first moved from Texas to Red River, New Mexico (near Taos).  Hearne sometimes refers to it his greatest hit. The video below is of a live performance by Hearne with his good friend and fellow New Mexico songwriter, Shake Russell, from a 2006 performance in Plano, Texas.  He has also recorded it (twice) with his band: on the CD Honky Tonk Roads and on the Live on Radio CD.  It has also been recorded by folk music legends, Bill (who is Michael's uncle) and (the late) Bonnie Hearne and by the Tex-Mex Country star, Johnny Rodriguez, who inexplicably changed the lyrics and title to Mexico Rain when he put it on his You Can Say that Again CD. John Denver never recorded it but he should have. You can see Hearne and Russell sing the song below, you can hear Bill and Bonnie sing it here, and you can hear Johnny Rodriguez sing it here.

Calvin Boles  co-wrote a song with R.D. Blankenship called simply New Mexico.  In 1964, he recorded it on a long playing record on the Yucca label titled New Mexico - Ballads of the Southwest (LPM-103). The rhythm track suggests that Boles considered the song more of a ballad than a waltz but it is in 3/4 time and is a perfectly good, in fact, quite dance-able waltz. Boles wore many hats.  The Dirt City Chronicles blog has an excellent summary of Boles' career. He was an entrepreneur who, in 1958, started his own record label, Yucca, using his garage as a recording studio.  He was a song writer who wrote more than 500 songs.  He was a singer, guitarist and band leader who eventually moved to Nashville, although without much success.  In his spare time, he was an insurance agent in Alamogordo, New Mexico and that is what paid his bills. The waltz/ballad New Mexico almost made it big. After Boles death in 2004, a bill (House Bill 81) was written in the New Mexico state legislature naming New Mexico as the official state cowboy song.  It never got the support it needed to become official and eventually another song, Under New Mexico Skies, was selected as the official state cowboy song.  Boles wrote a second waltz celebrating New Mexico and named it New Mexico Waltz (there is a 1949 copyright to Boles for that title).  It was recorded, again on the Yucca label, on his sixth long playing record, Country Dozen (LPM-106). A digital copy of that waltz has not been found but you can hear the waltz/ballad New Mexico below.

There are two other waltzes celebrating New Mexico available for on-line listening. The first comes from an unlikely source, The English Contra Dance Band (ECDB).  A member of the ECDB learned the tune at a 1989 workshop led by Bayou Seco in Sidmouth (England) but the name of the waltz has been forgotten. Bayou Seco is a folk duo based in Silver City, New Mexico so ECDB called the tune New Mexico Waltz.  In a private communication with Jeanie McLerie and Ken Keppeler of Bayou Seco, it was learned that they call the tune Waltz Emiliano because they learned it from Cleofes Ortiz of Bernal, NM who, in turn, learned it from his cousin, Emiliano Ortiz.   Historians believe that some Sephardic jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition, immigrated to New Mexico via Mexico beginning in the early 16th century. Jeanie and Ken speculate that this waltz might have its roots in that Sephardic jew immigration.  Listen here - it is a fine waltz.  You can hear Cleofes Ortiz's version here.

You will find a tune titled New Mexico Waltz here on Soundcloud.  This version was collected by Alan Musgrove from the playing of Jeff Conroy from Glenquarry, New South Wales, Australia.  Musgrove is a well known song collector and performer in Australia but if he has shared the story behind Conroy's New Mexico Waltz, it has not been found. You can find the score here.

There are two additional recorded versions of New Mexico waltz but digital files from them are not yet available:

• New Mexico Waltz, written by Jack (Tex) Williams.  Performed (in 1948 or 1949) by Williams and the Hired Hands on a 78 rpm record, Miltone 5230. Note there is a more famous Tex Williams whose birth name was Sollie Paul Williams - he did not make this recording.


• New Mexico Waltz, recorded by Ginger Smith on a 45 rpm record on the Brazos label.  Available from Amazon.com. No other information has been found.

A search of the copyright records available at the Internet Archive uncovered the following additional examples of New Mexico Waltz. No evidence was found that any of these were ever recorded or published.

New Mexico Waltz, 1949, words and music to Warner Elmer Farver.

The New Mexico Waltz, 1949, music to William Moody

New Mexico Waltz, 1950, words and music to George Emanuel Harris

New Mexico Waltz, 1948, music to Don George and words to Reba Adell Turnbull

New Mexico Waltz, 1951, words and music to Wanda Faye Wolfe

New Mexico Waltz, 1952, words to Jack A. Osbourne and music to Jay Osborne.

New Mexico Waltz, 1953, words and music to Merl Lindsay Salathiel

New Mexico Waltz, 1970, words to Ruby May Reid and music to A. Hosey & H. Gordon

New Mexico Waltz, 1971, words, music and arrangement to Hassel Fred "Nick" Nix

For those who make their own music, a simplified score for New Mexico's official bilingual state song is provide below. Lyrics follow the score.

Lyrics

I'm singing a song of my homeland. 
Most wonderful place that I've seen.
My song cannot fully describe it,
I call it land of my dreams.

New Mexico, 
Land of the sun where yucca blooms the sunset sighs.
New Mexico, 
Your starry nights, your music sweet as daylight dies.
My heart returns.
It ever yearns to hear the desert breezes blow.
Your snow, your rain, your rainbow's blend.
I'm proud of my New Mexico.

Yo canto de un país lindo
Más bello no he visto yo, 
Mi canción no puede decirlo, 
Como mi corazón.

Nuevo México, 
País del sol palmillas floreciendo allí. 
Nuevo México, 
Tus noches lindas traen recuerdos para mi. 
Mi corazón 
Llora por ti me dice a mi te quiero yo. 
Tus sierras y tus valles 
Son mi lindo Nuevo México.

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New Jersey

New Jersey does not have an official state waltz. In fact, New Jersey does not even have an official state song making them the only state without an official state song.  To be fair, the state legislature passed a bill to make I'm from New Jersey the state song but the governor never signed the bill (if you listen to the song you may conclude that the governor has better judgement than the legislature). And, anyway, I'm from New Jersey is not a waltz.

In the "not a waltz" category, New Jersey is a champion being the home state of many, many famous musicians from Paul Simon to Bruce Springsteen and being the topic of many songs. In a song-chasers tour de force, Jay Lustig, founder of NJArts.net, celebrated the 350 birthday of the state of New Jersey in 2014 by writing about a different New Jersey song each day for 350 days.  You can see the full list here. None of the songs which contained the words "Jersey" in the title were waltzes. But fortunately for this blog, Lustig added a few bonus songs at the end of the 350 days and one of those, Here's to the State of New Jersey, is a waltz! There is no video to view but you can listen to the song here.

There are some early New Jersey waltzes. Henry Eikmeier wrote a comic waltz titled Maidens of Jersey which was published by C.H. Ditson, New York in 1871.  At the time Ditson was the oldest and largest publisher of music in the country.  Eikmeier was a prolific composer of popular songs during the period, there are more than twenty preserved in the Notated Music collection of the U.S. Library of Congress, but little is apparently known of his life.

Anthony Buonocore added When I Get to New Jersey to the set of New Jersey waltzes in the early 20th century.  Buonocore composed both words and music.  A piano arrangement by John Russo was published in 1921 by Frank Harding, New York City.

Cameo-Parkway was a major record label based in Philadelphia which began in the 1950's. In the mid-60's they started a remarkably sleazy budget label subsidiary called Wyncote. Wyncote issued such records as Bach's Biggest Hits by the Single Swingers (not to be confused with Bach's Greatest Hits by the Swingle Singers) and Beatlemania by the Liverpools (not to be confused with the real thing). They also produced some decent recordings such as W/SW-9103, Cast Your Fate to the Wind (1964) by the Jimmy Wisner Orchestra which contained New Jersey Waltz written by Wisner. It is, by far, the best jazz waltz thus far encountered in this blog.  Curiously, Wyncote managed to stay in touch with their sleaze by co-opting the title and cover photo from the parent company's catalog - AP-7046, Cast Your Fate to the Wind by Sounds Orchestral for Wisner's album. The two records evidently share different version of Vince Guaraldi's Cast Your Fate to the Winds but nothing else. While Jimmy Wisner's "orchestra" is not identified, it is almost certainly Chick Kinney on drums and Ace Tesone on bass - they were together as a trio for more than five years during that period.  Before New Jersey Waltz, Wisner had a big hit, Asia Minor, a rock version of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor (which he recorded under the pseudonym of Kokomo). Wisner went on to be an arranger and major producer for Columbia Records working with most of their major artists including Barbara Streisland and Tony Bennett (the full, impressive list is in his Wikipedia entry). Wisner died quite recently, March 13th of this year, at the age of 86. The original version of his New Jersey Waltz is in the video below. A second version - identical except for the addition of just a touch of synthesizer in a couple of spots - was included in a 2012, reissue album titled Time and Space (ABKCO - 8890).

A country/blues/bluegrass band in New Jersey may seem like an anatopism but that is only because most people think that all of New Jersey looks like Newark. South Jersey has cows, farms and even rodeos (this blogger has been there).  This country element of New Jersey was captured by John Langston of The Snake Brothers in an autobiographical song he wrote called South Jersey Walz. Langston offers that he wrote it as a result of a challenge from Eric Waltman (Snake Brothers' bass player) after hearing West Texas Waltz. The waltz is in the classic country mode of many state waltzes and would fit just fine in any dance hall west of the Mississippi (although references to Cape May county might confuse the dancers). The Snake Brothers have been together for a while - you can tell by their tight harmonies and tight rhythms - and rarely leave the South Jersey festival scene.  Judging from the videos on their Facebook page, there are four regulars in the band - John Langston (guitar, dobro, banjo and lead vocals), Ernie Trionfo (guitar), Mark Ternosky (harmonica) and Eric Waltman (bass). Rob Ward (mandolin, guitar, fiddle, vocals) used to be a regular and still joins them occasionally but has decamped to New Orleans. They have released three records, Hissing in the Wind (1992, now out of print), South Jersey Waltz (2001) and The Snake Brothers at Union Hall (2008) which are available at CDBaby. There are references to a third album recorded live in Delaware, but it remains hidden at the moment. South Jersey Waltz had its moment of fame, even before this blog, when it was used as the theme song for a PBS special, "Sense of Place: Artists of South Jersey."  With that introduction, take a listen below:

There are two other known videos which feature New Jersey waltzes but they don't seem worth full coverage here.  The first is a a 34 second snippet from the sound track of the movie Don Jon.  Music for the movie was composed by Nathan Johnson and is available for purchase as a download. You can also hear it on YouTube here. The second is a duet between a man and his dog, Rocky, singing Waltz Across New Jersey to the tune of Waltz Across Texas.  If you like that sort of thing, you can view it here.

The website bandcamp attracts a few good musicians and others that are giving it a good try. It also attracts mostly rappers and rockers but a few waltzers do sneak in.  A somewhat painful search found only one New Jersey related waltz - New Jersey Drone which was posted by Austin Swearengin.  You can hear it here.

A review of copyrights available digitally through the Internet Archive reveals several more waltzes celebrating New Jersey.  These were probably never published nor recorded:

• My Old New Jersey Waltz, copyright words to James Wallace Eskridge and music to Alice Lucey Reed, 1951
• New Jersey Waltz, words and music copyright to Mildred Reed McKee, 1951
• Jersey Waltz, words and music copyright to Arthur Stemson Dundas, 1952
• The New Jersey Waltz, words and music copyright to Addison C. Amor, 1960
• Beautiful New Jersey Waltz, copyright to Ocean-Spray Music, composer Dominick R. Corbo, 1960
• New Jersey Waltz, copyright music to Paul J. Gandolfo, 1961

And finally, for those who prefer to make their own music, here is a simplified score and lyrics for South Jersey Waltz posted here with permission from the composer, John Langston.

Lyrics

From the meadows of Cape May county,
I think back where my life has led.
From the mouth of the Chesapeake in Portsmouth, Virginia
To the California farms of Merced.
In that time, I've sung all the songs of the road
All the songs of the mountains and sea.
But the South Jersey waltz is the song that I love
And the song that keeps calling to me.

Won't you dance with me darling to the South Jersey waltz
'Til the world's just a dim memory.
If you'll offer your hand
Then I'll ask the band
To play the South Jersey waltz endlessly.

So I asked her please dance with me darling.
She offered up her slender hand.
And we danced from the cobblestone streets of Cape May
To the salt creek above Rio Grand.
And the melody brought us together
And the song that we sang was our own
And the South Jersey waltz
was the song that we shared
And the song that keeps calling us home.

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New Hampshire

New Hampshire has an official state song, My Old New Hampshire, and eight honorary state songs. The official state song is not a waltz nor are any of the honorary state songs (thanks go to Rebecca Stockbridge, Reference Librarian at the New Hampshire State Library, and to Brownie Macintosh, who wrote one of the honorary state songs, for the help in tracking down this information).

In fact, there are very few waltzes celebrating New Hampshire - all the ones that are easy to find are reviewed below.

A YouTube comment by Peter Fischman and Deb O'Hanion suggests that New Hampshire Wind written Tom Smith and his daughter, Mally, should be the state song.  Not a bad idea. It is a charming song, particularly in the animated video version below. The animation was provided by Pell Osborne and the children at Creative Arts at Park, Brookline, Massachusetts. Singing and guitar by Tom Smith.

You can also see Tom sing the song here or buy New Hampshire Wind on Tom's CD, Journey Home available at CDBaby.

Bradley Winfield Parker has a provided a classic, country style waltz with his Waltz Across New Hampshire.  The song is included in Parker's third album, Done Turned On, released on the Albeit label in 2010.  Parker is a multi-instrumentalist, a singer and a song writer from a musical family. He has roots in New Hampshire and was once a member of  the Franconia Notch Band before working as a solo artist.

Adam Boyce, a life time Vermonter currently living in West Windsor, calls himself a Yankee Fiddler and, in the past, spent a fair amount of time traveling in nearby states to play his fiddle for dances.  This included a dance in Wentworth, New Hampshire for which he composed a waltz creatively titled, Wentworth, New Hampshire.  Boyce is a good fiddler as evidenced by that shelf full of fiddle contest trophies in the video below but he is, arguably, even better as a composer.  His has written more than 100 tunes including 21 waltzes which he has collected into a book titled Vermont Waltzes from Boyce Road. Many of these waltzes are available on his YouTube channel. or can be downloaded from his Bandcamp album, Waltzing with You. The waltz this blog is most interested in can be seen below, Wentworth, New Hampshire waltz:

Most biographical snippets for Michael Caduto describe him as an "award-winning author, environmental educator, master storyteller and musician." Putting "musician" at the end of that list does not mean that it is his weakest skill, he is a fine singer/songwriter, but it does correctly suggest that his music is a means to another end.  That end is educating the world, particularly the youth of the world, in the importance of our environment and its preservation.  He is the founder of P.E.A.C.E., Programs for Environmental Awareness and Cultural Exchange.  His writing, story-telling and singing are all in support of that cause. His music has been captured in an award-winning album titled All One Earth: Songs for the Generations which is available on his website. You can listen to all of the songs in that album on YouTube and the most popular one is the waltz, New Hampshire Autumn (White Mountain Waltz):

The waltz was introduced in the United States in the 19th century and many states were celebrated with waltzes written in that century.  But if New Hampshire was the subject of one of those waltzes, it has been lost.  The oldest detected waltz celebrating New Hampshire is An Old Fashioned Home in New Hampshire which was published in 1931 by Shapiro, Bernstein & Company in New York.  The song was written by Sam M. Lewis and Robert A. King. It was recorded in 1932 for the Perfect label by Dave Roberts and His Home Towners. According to The American Dance Band Discography 1917-1942: Arthur Lange to Bob Zurke, Dave Roberts and His Home Towners was a pseudonym for Joe Green and his Orchestra. Lew Green, Jr., the grandson of Joe Green, suggests that it was not unusual for contractual arrangements to require the use of a pseudonym during the period. Interestingly, Green, Jr. has recreated the original Green Brothers band as Green's New Novelty Orchestra and traveled to West Orange, New Jersey to record at the Edison National Historic Site.  You can hear their music on their CD, Green's New Novelty Orchestra, which, unfortunately, did not include An Old Fashioned Home in New Hampshire. But, thanks to the Internet Archive, you can hear that waltz in the video below.

Few people know that Mendelsohn wrote a waltz titled The New Hampshire Waltz. Well, perhaps not the Mendelssohn you are thinking of - it was written by Louis Mendelsohn in 1954 not Felix Mendelssohn - and it was arranged for piano by Edward J. Madden. Sheet music may still be available here. The original 1954 copyright referenced lyrics to Mendelsohn's song by Charles Davis Pike.

A search of available copyright records found only one more waltz celebrating New Hampshire:

1959, New Hampshire Waltz, words and music copyrights to Toby Hibbs, also known as Anthony Stanley Hibner

Not included here:

The title suggests it should be high on the list for discussion but The New Hampshire Waltz written by Jim Barnes is not a waltz at all.  It is a ballad about dancing to the tune of New Hampshire Waltz at the Rockingham Ballroom.  It is a good tune and the rules of this blog are going to be broken to bring it to you below:

For those who like to make their own music, a simplified score for the Wentworth, New Hampshire Waltz as provided by the composer, Adam Boyce, can be found below.

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