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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Nevada

Nevada does not have an official state waltz.

The most famous waltz celebrating Nevada is When It's Night-time in Nevada.  Variously attributed to Gene Autry or Bob Nolan of the Sons of the Pioneers, the music was actually written by Will E. Dulmage and H. O'Reilly Clint with lyrics by Richard W. Pascoe. Durage, Clint and Pascoe were hardly cowboys - they were all successful songwriters living in Detroit.  Clint has the added distinction of being the composer of Michigan's state song - My Michigan (such coincidences warm the heart of state-song chasers). When It's Night-time in Nevada was copyrighted in 1931 and was an immediate hit with at least eight recording made that year (by Layton and Johnstone, O'Dell and Hudson, Bert and Bob, Arthur Lally and the Million-Airs, Carson Robison and Frank Luther-Abraham, Carson Robison Trio, Maurice Elwin, Frankie Marvin, Tommie and Willie and more the next year including one in Swedish). The earliest of those, by a matter of months, is believed to be that of Frankie Martin:

Since that time, there have been at least 50 versions of Night-time recorded. Perhaps the most famous is the one sung by Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers in the 1948 movie, Night Time in Nevada. Sadly, most versions of this movie available today edit out the song which gave the movie its title but, fortunately, the full movie does exist on YouTube and the video below was excerpted from that version.

In 1963, Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers recorded When It's Night-time in Nevada on the RCA Victor record, Our Men Out West (RCA Victor LPM/LP-2603) which you can hear here.  This recorded version leaves out one of the verses and also eliminates the one verse which is inexplicably sung in Spanish in the movie.

An even earlier waltz celebrating Nevada, The Whispering Pines of Nevada, was created in London. The music, first published in 1927, was composed by an Englishman, Horatio Nicholls (whose real name was Lawrence Wright), and the lyrics (and presumably the title) were written by an American, Edgar Leslie. Some sources also list Alvin Keech as a composer but he was actually the arranger (for banjo-uke, an instrument popularized by Keech and his brother Kelvin as the banjulele)  of the first published version.  Nichols/Wright was an important figure in London music of the era and you can see him in an interesting short film about one of his big hits, I'm Saving the Last Waltz for You. (not to be confused with the Drifters' Save the Last Dance for Me). The Whispering Pines of Nevada was recorded by a number of dance bands including the one that broadcast it's performance from the Tivoli Cinema on the Strand in London (the band was almost certainly led by John Reynders):

The success of Tennessee Waltz in 1948, triggered a flurry of state waltzes.  One of those was Nevada Waltz which was recorded in 1949, on RCA 21-0084 by Dude Martin and his Roundup Gang. Martin was best known for a weekly, local Country Western show on KTTV in Los Angeles from 1951 to 1955 but he also had a successful recording career for RCA and Mercury records and his western swing band was compared to that of Bob Wills.  Copyright records indicate that it was also released as sheet music for piano and vocal by Vanguard Songs. Martin co-wrote the song with the accordionist in his band Ted Johnson. You can see Johnson (his neckname - Hezzy - is emblazened on his chaps) in the photo that accompanies the video of Nevada Waltz below.

A more recent waltz celebrating Nevada is Waltz of Nevada performed by David John and the Comstock Cowboys on their 2002 album, Cowboys, Old Fiddles & Wine on the Aztec record label.  David John is a talented singer/songwriter once nominated as songwriter and entertainer of the year by the Western Music Association. He's headquartered in Virginia City, Nevada and,sadly, rarely seems to venture far from home.  You'll have to travel to Nevada to see one of his shows but you can listen to his Waltz of Nevada in the video below courtesy of CDBaby.

Moving away from western and cowboy influence, Mark Knopfler provides a jewel of a waltz titled Sands of Nevada on his 2000 album, Sailing to Philadelphia. The version below from YouTube is accompanied by some gorgeous photographs by Antton Longaron Galarza of winter in the Basque country in today's Spain and France. Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but there was a large migration from the Basque country to northern Nevada in the 1950's and they remain an important cultural group in the state. The landscapes are said to be similar.

It barely counts as a waltz but David Murray's live jazz improvisation titled Nevada's Theme starts out in 3/4 time but after a little over a minute it wanders off into arrhythmic territory.  It may return to a waltz structure sometime later in its eleven minutes of music, but this listener wandered off after about two minute and doesn't know how the tune ends.

Not included in the discussion above:

There is evidence of a Nevada Waltz in existence before 1890 but the waltz itself is, sadly, lost. The September 27, 1890 Weymouth Gazette published in Weymouth, Massachusetts contained a review of a program presented at the Opera House in Chagrin Falls which contains these words, "The audience was so pleased with "Nevada Waltz" as sung by Miss [Maude] Nichols that she was called back and entertained them with another pretty song which only increased their appreciation of the singer." In the same issue Miss Sussie J. Tirrell offered twenty piano lessons for $10 in East Weymouth.

A review of copyright records available in the Internet Archives found these additional waltzes.

• 1949, Nevada Trail, a Cowpunchers Waltz - from the movie West of Laramie, by Foster Carling.
• 1953, Waltz of Nevada - words to Clara Clifton Glover and music to Ann V. Brown.
• 1954, The Nevada Waltz - by Edward Arnold Stredick (a Canadian copyright)
• 1962, The Nevada Waltz - words to Alfred L. Atkinson and music to Buddy Bregman
• 1962, Nevada Waltz - words and music to Albert C. Johnston, Jr.
• 1975, The Nevada Waltz - words and music to Dorothy J. Halter

And finally for those who make their own music, here is a simplified score for When It's Night-time in Nevada which retains the rhythm composed for the original piano sheet music but approximates the song sung by Roy Rogers.

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