Illinois

Illinois does not have an official state waltz but there are a number of songs with "Illinois" and "Waltz" in the title.
The earliest such song note is in sheet music form and can be found in the Notated Music Collection of the Library of Congress.  It is a piano instrumental, best described as a parlor waltz - for listening, not dancing, and it was composed by Charles Geissler and published by Balmer and Weber, St. Louis in 1855.  You can hear a computer generated version of it below.

In 1860, Baker Graves published Illinois Waltz composed by L. L. Emmons.  It is a simple waltz for the beginning piano student.  You can find a score here in the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The most watched Illinois Waltz is one performed by Leon Olsen at the Ellsworth Wisconsin Polka Fest. Olsen, a member of the World Concertina Congress Hall of Fame, plays a chemnitzer concertina and leads the Leon Olsen Show, one of the most popular polka bands in the U.S. Midwest. The composer of Olsen's Illinois Waltz unknown. In addition to the Illinois Waltz in the video below, you can find many other videos by Leon Olsen and his band on YouTube.

You will find a simplified score for Olsen's Illinois Waltz at the bottom of this page.

There is only one other Illinois Waltz available on YouTube and that is a version written and performed by Timothy Twiss.  The full title is Masciale's Illinois Waltz. Twiss has composed 15 or so tunes for his banjo friends and titles each one with the persons name and their geographic location. You can find several such tunes in Twiss's YouTube video uploads.  John Masciale, the subject of this waltz, is host of the Minstrel Banjo website and a performer with his wife in the group Tin Cremona which performs pieces from the mid-19th century on copies of historic instruments, including the banjo.

There are two other songs titled Illinois Waltz worthy of mention.  Unfortunately, recordings of these two have not been found.  The first is a version credited to Charles "Chaw" Mank and Red Thompson, published in 1948 by Mank's Blue Ribbon Music Company in Staunton, Illinois. Although very rare, copies of the sheet music are still found. The song was recorded by Fred Oliver's Prairie Pioneers in 1949 on the Hart-Van label.

The second was written by James Rust and recorded sometime in the 1950's by Bluegrass Jim (James Rust?) on K-Ark 205.

What has been left out:

There are several Illinois Waltzes noted only in copyrights:

• The Illinois Waltz (subtitled Corn Palace Song) by Muriel Smith, 1953
• Illinois Waltz by Guy Crab, 1919
• Beautiful Illinois Waltz by Lloyd Bollinger, 1949

A record, Belco 247, Jack and Lee Ervin has Illinois Waltz on one side and Satin Doll on the other. Belco was a Mesquite, TX company that specialized in square dance music.

Frankie Yankovic's Joliet Waltz is sometimes misidentified as Joliet Illinois Waltz.

Scores and Lyrics

Here is that simplified score of the Illinois Waltz played by Leon Olsen (although not in Olsen's key).

Return to the Index of Other State Songs