Two friends from Nebraska who have danced many a waltz together.
Nebraska has no official state waltz.
There are however four songs titled Nebraska Waltz available in digital form. The only one of those four which clearly celebrates the state of Nebraska is by Nebraska native, Chris Sayre. Sayre is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with a strong following in his home state. He has recorded three solo albums and his 2007 album titled Tunes from Along the Way contains his own Nebraska waltz titled The Nebraska Waltz. If the state of Nebraska wants an official state waltz, this is the one to select.
A second Nebraska Waltz is performed by Deadsea Horses (not to be confused with the group, Dead Seahorse). A correspondent tells this blog that Deadsea Horses is actually one person, who temporarily abandoned the Indie music scene to serve as a physician in Amarillo, Texas. In the interest of privacy, his name is being withheld until his permission to add it to this blog is received. It is an interesting Indie/folk approach to a waltz, complete with a devil's tritone chord. Why this song, which was originally found on the ReverbNation website, is titled Nebraska Waltz is a bit of a mystery - the lyrics do not involve Nebraska and the songwriters roots are in New Jersey, not Nebraska. The ReverbNation track has been dressed up with a dance hall photo to provide the video below.
The waltz arrived in the United States in the early 19th century and inspired many composers to write waltzes celebrating their native states. Many have been lost but a Nebraska Waltz written by Charles C. Poindexter as found in 1854 sheet music published by Balmer & Weber of St. Louis has been preserved and can be found in the Gaylord Special Collection of the library of Washington University in St. Louis. Here is a computer generated rendition of this early Nebraska Waltz:
For the second time in this blog series, a state waltz by a composer of serious classical music is featured. David Graves, originally from Nebraska but a long time resident of the San Franciso area, wrote a wind quintet piece titled Nebraska Waltz. Graves is a musician with many interests. He has not only been the resident composer for the Berkeley Symphony but also plays in the rock group ScienceNV and has recorded several albums of pop vocals (and in a secret past was Director of Medical Information at Genentech). His Nebraska Waltz composition was performed in October, 2011, by The Avenue Winds at a meeting of group of Bay Area composers known as the Irregular Resolutions. The program notes from that concert are worth repeating, "Nebraska Waltz was written for David's mother! The first 50 measures or so are characterized by a very dignified waltz, but it is interrupted by a tornado. (Hey, this is the sort of thing that happens in Nebraska.) The flute takes us home in the tornado's aftermath, complete with birds at sunset and our dignity returned." A recording from that concert is the basis for the video below:
Fans of the late Charles Kuralt's On the Road program on CBS may recognize something in the timbre of the voice singing Sweet Nebraska Land. That is because the singer (and fine banjo player) in the song is Roger Welsch, the man Kuralt turned to as the voice of Nebraska. Welsch also shared the song in his book A Treasury of Nebraska Pioneer Folklore where he reports that it was originally "collected by L.C. Wimberly from Cyrus Korben of Chase County, Nebraska." The tune is based on O Tannenebaum which is also found in state waltzes for Maryland and Iowa (although it is certainly "fixed up" for Sweet Nebraska Land). The song appears on Welsch's 1965 Smithonian Folkways album titled Sweet Nebraska Land.
The last video contribution to this blog about Nebraska waltzes is a beautifully constructed waltz titled Nebraska River Song. It was written by Ed Harvey and recorded on the 2015 Prairie Dog label CD titled Stories Seldom Told. Ed manages to tell a beginning/middle/end story AND mention all 14 of the major rivers in Nebraska. He suggests in the first video below that he missed two rivers and mentions the Nishnabotna as being one. The other is probably the Arikaree (which spends most of its life in Colorado) or maybe the Wood (which you could just about jump across at its namesake town). Ed was a long time resident of Nebraska but currently lives in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Two versions of Nebraska River Song are provided below. The first is a live, 2015 performance at the Mo Java Cafe & Roasting Company in Lincoln, Nebraska and the second is directly from his Stories Seldom Told CD. (For you folks in Lincoln, Ed is going to be back at the Mo Java on July, 27, 2018 - please attend and ask him to sing Nebraska River Song again).
Several libraries, for example the David Soren sheet music collection at the University of Arizona, contain sheet music for Windy Nebraska Waltz written by Nellie Miller in 1900. A digital copy has not yet been found.
Not included in this blog:
This website suggests that the record, Elmer Schied Story, contains Nebraska Waltz. Unfortunately, not true. It contains many waltzes but not one from Nebraska. It appears that the reference should have been to Nebraska Polka.
A search of copyrights using the Internet Archive resource has located six additional Nebraska waltzes which were written and copyrighted but may never have progressed to performance or publication. These include:
The Nebraska Waltz, words and music copyrighted by Elmo Alexander Winston in an arrangement by Echo Galloway in 1951. In 1966, Winston obtained a copyright of his own arrangement with changed words.
Nebraska Waltz, words and music copyrighted by Pearle Bohlken Remmers in 1952
Nebraska Waltz, words and music copyrighted by Julia Wilson in 1953
Nebraska Waltz, words and music copyrighted by Gloria O. Minarik in 1954
The Nebraska Waltz, words and music copyrighted by Iola Davis Long in 1955
The Nebraska Waltz, lyrics and music copyrighted by Robert W. Duley in 1978.
And finally, here is a simplified score followed by lyrics for Chris Sayre's The Nebraska Waltz:
Lyrics:
From the prairie fields of green To where the hills of sand are seen, It's Nebraska's dear land where I roam. Take my hand, come with me And we'll dance for all to see To the waltz that we've made our own. And no matter where we go, We can't help but show The love for Nebraska our home. Take my hand, come with me And we'll dance for all to see To the waltz that we've made our own.
Montana has three official state songs - an anthem (1910), a ballad (1983) and a lullaby. The lullaby is a waltz titled Montana Lullaby.
Montana Lullaby comes, in part, from a yodel created by Wylie Gustafson. The words and some of the tune come from Montana rancher, author and singer/songwriter, Ken Overcast. Both of these gentlemen are authentic singing cowboys from Montana and were probably as surprised as the rest of the world when HB 594 was signed into law making their song the official Montana state lullaby in April, 2007. In a note to this blog, Overcast described the writing of Montana Lullaby like this:
My
original version of the Montana Lullaby was recorded in 2000. I wrote it
sometime before that, but I can’t recall exactly when. Wylie Gustafson had
written and recorded the yodel part sometime before on an album called Skytones: Songs of Montana and he called it Big Sky Lullaby. Wylie’s version was just
a yodel with no lyrics at all. I loved Wylie’s yodel when I heard it, and
contacted him with the idea of putting some lyrics to it. My version of the
yodel is slightly different, but is basically the same. I put an augmented chord
at the end of some of the yodel lines that was my own little twist. I wrote a few lyrics and the tune for the verse and chorus and
recorded the original version on my CD entitled Montana Cowboy. Later, I was contacted by Lonnie Bell of KGHL in
Billings, Montana. He is a well-known Hall of Fame DJ, and has been around
forever. He told me that he was getting a lot of requests for that song and he
personally just loved it. He suggested that it should be put before the
legislature to make it an “Official Song of Montana”. One itty-bitty problem
with it (according to Lonnie), it was too short. It needed another verse and/or
chorus. So with Lonnie’s encouragement, I wrote another verse and chorus and
flew to Nashville and with the help of Producer Russ Ragsdale, recorded the new
version. Lonnie loved the addition we made to the tune and set the ball in
motion to make it an “Official Lullaby of the State of Montana”. He subsequently
contacted Rep. Wayne Stahl to introduce the legislation, and the rest is
history. Senator Kim Hansen then carried the bill in the Montana Senate, and
after passing both houses of the Legislature was subsequently signed into law by
Governor Brian Schweitzer. It was a very humbling experience.
(Note: the hyperlinks in Overcast's quote were added by the author of this blog who highly recommends that you click on that Big Sky Lullaby link.)
Montana was the first and still the only state to have an official state lullaby. You can hear Overcast sing the official version of Montana Lullaby with the added verse immediately below and following it is the original version from the Montana Cowboy CD.
While Overcast's lullaby is probably not a tune you would sing to your granddaughter at the end of a long day, the Montana Lullaby written by another cowboy/poet, Les Buffham is exactly that sort of song - in fact he wrote it in 1994 for his first granddaughter, Laurel Michelle, when she was just seven months old. You can hear Les himself tell the story behind the lullaby here. And fortunately for this blog, it is also in waltz form so it can be included here. There is a wonderful version of Buffham's lullaby sung by Linda Louden but for the purposes of this blog, Buffham's own version as provided in his CD, Below the Kinney Rim, is provided below .
The most famous and most listened to waltz about Montana is the waltz titled Montana which was written and recorded by the musical legend, James Taylor. Taylor wrote the song while alone in a cabin during a ski trip with his family to Montana. Montana is track number five on Taylor's 2015 album, Before This World. The album was the number one selling album the week it was released in June, 2015. Here is a live version of Taylor singing Montana:
But what about songs titled Montana Waltz? The most covered Montana Waltz was written by Rita Ward of Nine Mile Valley in Montana sometime around 1980. It was initially recorded in 1982, by LeGrande Harvey and released as the "B" side of a 45 rpm record on the Bear Paw record label, BP002. The most remarkable thing about the record is that the song on the "A" side of the record, Montana Melody went on to become the official Montana state ballad. There are two other recorded versions of Ms. Ward's Montana Waltz - John Westbrook from Hampton, Virginia has a nice version available on SoundCloud but Bill Chiles has done more than anyone else to make her Montana Waltz part of Montana soundscape. Chiles frequently performs it live and it was included in the 25th anniversary recording of Cowboy Songs & Ballad celebration of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West museum. A live performance video is provided below.
Bill Chiles video is almost certainly the source of the fiddle tune that Jim McMillan, the president of the Montana Old Time Fiddler's Association, says he learned off of YouTube. There is a bit of folk process underway but it is definitely the same tune. He plays it here in a video made at the Montana state fiddle contest in 2017.
Those who recall the folk revival of the 1960's will surely remember the Canadian duo, Ian and Sylvia and their big hit, Four Strong Winds. In 1968, the duo moved to Nashville and their music morphed from folk to country. After their separation (both as a performing duo and as a married couple), Ian Tyson returned to Canada, bought a ranch and focused on cowboy/western music. One result of this was a 1983 solo album titled Old Corrals & Sagebrush on the Columbia label (PCC 80080). Track four on that record was Montana Waltz written by Tyson himself. Here it is:
The third Montana Waltz is interesting. It is written and performed by John Murrin Cornelius and is to be found on an "album" titled Music of John Cornelius issued by the Dear Old Dad Productions. The "album" is probably a family digital production - evidence of a physical album was not found. It tells exactly the same tale as Tennessee Waltz but moves the location to Montana. Listening to some of the other songs from the same album, there is a good chance that Cornelius's tongue was in his cheek when he sang it. Cornelius himself remains a bit of a mystery man - the only digital footprints he left were a few music copyrights and the album containing this Montana Waltz:
In about 1955, a young singer, Don Redfield - still in the military, recorded his first record. Redfield was originally from Massachusetts but went to college in Montana and was living there when he joined the military. That first record celebrated his adopted state with a version of Montana Waltz which he wrote and copyrighted in 1949. On the record, Redfield was accompanied by his band - the Sagedusters. It was on the Sage label (Sage 45-545) and is available thanks to LostSoundsMontana which is a virtual treasure chest of Montana music.
Larry Edwards, a country singer born in Ohio but a long time resident of Arizona, wrote and performed Blue Montana Waltz for his 2010 album Heroes of the Honkytonk(Desert Wind Records).
For most states, at least one 19th century waltz celebrating the state is to be found among digital collections of sheet music from the era but that was not the case with Montana. However, MasterSource, a subsidiary of Universal Production Music has provided what sounds like an authentic 19th century piece but in fact is a newly composed song, not based on any public domain piece. You will find it in an album titled Saloon Piano which collects music described as "saloon sounds to compliment any scene in that bar-brawling, gun-toting, damsel-rescuing classic American genre." The song is called Montana Sky Waltz and it is allegedly played by Franky "Fastfingers" Flint. The song was written by Daniel May and Marc Ferrari (thanks to Greg Power of Universal Music for providing that information). Ferrari is a rocker, best known for his role in the group Cold Sweat, and an entrepreneur who founded MasterSource. If you watch television, you have heard music provided by MasterSource - it is that faintly recognizable but not-quite-famous music that you hear as background in many, many shows. May is a composer with a PhD from Cornell and a performing jazz pianist. A communication with Ferrari revealed that May is actually the piano player in the piece although you have to admit that Franky "Fastfingers" Flint is a pretty good pseudonym.
And saving the most creative (or weirdest) for last, there was a California bay area band called Lo-Fi Sugar which recorded a song titled Waltz to Montana. It appears in Lo-Fi Sugar's 2009 album, Quadrilogy on the Highly Evolved label. Heather Pollock is the lead singer for Lo-Fi Sugar and credited as the composer of the song. The song itself is a delightfully whimsical waltz which seems to have no connection to the state of Montana other than the title. The song is indeed creative, and a departure from the usual trance dance music of Lo-Fi Sugar, but the creativity is at least doubled by the video created for the song by Charles Pieper, a versatile and talented young film producer. Pieper animates the song with stop-action, clay figure puppets which more than match the whimsical nature of the song. Enjoy it here:
In addition to the above videos, there are a couple of Montana waltz sound files to be found on the web:
Montana Waltz , an old time fiddle tune played by Cecil Snow found on the Slippery-Hill website.
Montana Waltz, written by Jack Barbour, played on organ by Jay Edwards. sound file from a 78 rpm record
Known recordings for which no audio files are available include:
Betty Jo Starr's 1951 recording of Montana Waltz written by John Staer and Starr on the Keyboard Records label (WES-502).
The Lazy B Wranglers 1969 recording of Montana Waltz, composer unknown, on the LP, The Lazy "B" Wranglers Sing Songs of the Old West on the Lazy B label (R4RM 5546-7).
In 2005, the "Who Knows?" section of the Cowboy Poetry website contained a discussion of Montana waltzes in which "Charles" reports that his grandfather, Marcus Crowley, won a contest in 1971, to write Montana Waltz lyrics for a tune known as Bill's Waltz written by a Montana fiddler named Bill Long. Those lyrics are still available on cowboypoetry.com and the music for Bill's Waltz is to be found on YouTube. All we need is an enterprising singer to put the two together and a Montana Waltz would be reborn.
Montana waltz findings not included above:
There is a reference in an 1874 Sherman & Hyde's Musical Review to a 4th Grade teaching piece for piano titled Montana Waltz by Kulling. This is the only evidence found of a 19th century Montana waltz.
Waltz Across Montana by Doug Adkins - a good title and a good country song, but not a waltz.
A search of copyrights on the Internet Archive site found a number of Montana waltzes that probably were never published or recorded. Most copyright records have not been digitized so there are probably more Montana waltzes to be found in the future. Those found include:
Montana Waltz, Alfred Henry Waller Boucher, 1917 Montana, a waltz, words and music to Ruth Byrd and H. Weeks, 1921 Let Me Live in Old Montana, waltz, A.J. Maurer and May Chittim, 1937 Montana Waltz, words to Jack Thomas Hoye, 1942 Maid of Montana, a waltz, words and melody to Edward Clayton Hicks, 1944 Montana Waltz, words to Joseph Halton Fisher, music to Roddy Gary Neal Fisher, 1949 The Montana Waltz, to Sigrid Carlson, 1950 The Montana Waltz, words and music to Thomas Edwin Jones, Jr., 1951 The Montana Waltz, words and music to Abbie Morey, 1951 Montana Waltz, music to Dennis Aloysius Dellwo, 1952 Montana Waltz, words and music to Nellie A. Fenner, 1953 Montana Waltz, words and music to Jerry Lenling, 1953 Montana Waltz, words and music to George Raymond Tomsich, 1954 Montana Waltz, Albert B. Tondra, 1954 Montana Waltz, words and music to Albert Floyd Parker, 1955 Montana Waltz, words to Lee and S. Hunt, music to Gene Brooks, 1957 Montana Waltz, words and music to Edna Kirsch, 1960 The Montana Waltz, words and music to Gene Quaw, 1964
And finally, a simplified score for Rita Ward's Montana Waltz. The score is in the key of B flat, the same key that Bill Chiles sings in and Jim McMillan plays on his fiddle. If you would like a copy in a different key, just send the author a note using the "Contact Me" form at the top of this blog.
Lyrics as transcribed by "Jodi" from LeGrande Harvey's original recording and reported on the Cowboy Poetry website. The lyrics sung by Bill Chiles are slightly different.
There's a song in my memories
At twilight time calls
I hear it so clearly
The Montana waltz
I remember an evening
I hold to my heart
My dreams take me back
As the melody starts
I sit here just dreamin' the evenings away
Forgetting the lonely hours
I've spent through the day
A long ago waltz keeps my memory bright
And if wishes could take me
I'd be there tonight
The Montana waltz is echoing still
Whispering tonight over valley and hill
The memory haunts me
The melody calls
Come back to your darlin's
And the Montana Waltz
There's a place where the mountain tops reach to the sky
And there my love and I kissed goodbye
We danced until dawn and the tune lingers yet
The Montana Waltz I will never forget
The Montana waltz is echoing still
Whispering tonight over valley and hill
The memory haunts me
The melody calls
Come back to your darlin's
And the Montana Waltz
