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.
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
The official state song of Missouri is a waltz, Missouri Waltz.
The waltz is often associated with U.S. President Harry S. Truman, a native of Missouri, because it was played at almost every appearance he made in his 1948 Presidential campaign. In June, 1949, after Truman's election as President, the Missouri General Assembly voted to make Missouri Waltz their official state song. It is also associated with a second U.S. President, Richard M. Nixon, because it is one of the songs that he enjoyed playing on the piano. You can see him playing it in 1959, while he was Vice President, with comedian Jack Benny in the video below.
In 1969, when the Truman Presidential Library was officially opened, then President Richard Nixon traveled to the Library and played Missouri Waltz for Truman and his wife. While video of the occasion does exist, it is, sadly, silent. You will see Nixon sit down at the piano at about 1'15" in this video.
But Missouri Waltz is not contemporary with Truman. It was first published privately as a piano solo around 1912 by Frederick Knight Logan. Logan listed himself as the arranger, not the composer. Logan was from Missouri but worked for many years as a musical director of Broadway productions. He was also a composer with a fondness for waltzes (you can find scores for many of them here). Early versions of the sheet music say "from an original melody procured by John Valentine Eppel" (see the version from the Levy Sheet Music Collection) although later editions changed "procured" to "produced" (see the version from the Duke Library Collection) and by 1940, most editions just said "original melody by John Valentine Eppel" (see for example the 1941 version published by Forster Music). It is generally, but not universally, agreed that Eppel "procured" the melody from a Missouri ragtime pianist named Lee Edgar Settle - a "fact" that is carved in stone on Settle's tombstone. Whether Settle created the melody or "procured" it elsewhere is a matter of speculation - speculation which will be left John C. Fisher's book, Catfish, Fiddles, Mules and More: Missouri's State Symbolswhich covers it well. Logan's original arrangement of Missouri Waltz had no lyrics and sounded like this:
In 1914, Logan sold the rights to F.J.A. Forster of Chicago. Forster hired James Royce Shannon to provide lyrics. Shannon was a Tin Pan Alley musician who in 1913 had composed words and music for the number one hit of the time, Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral - That's an Irish Melody. Shannon was born and raised in Michigan and probably never visited Missouri. Although minstrel shows were no longer a professional entertainment vehicle in the early twentieth century, Shannon chose to adopt many minstrel tropes into his lyrics. Many of those tropes can be traced directly to Harriet Beecher Stowes famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin. The full original lyrics are:
Hush-a-bye, ma baby, slumbertime is comin' soon; Rest yo' head upon my chest while Mammy hums a tune; The sandman is callin' where shadows are fallin', While the soft breezes sigh as in days long gone by.
Way down in Missouri where I heard this melody, When I was a Pickaninny on ma Mammy's knee; The darkies were hummin'; their banjos were strummin'; So sweet and low.
Strum, strum, strum, strum, strum, Seems I hear those banjos playin' once again, Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, That same old plaintive strain.
Hear that mournful melody, It just haunts you the whole day long, And you wander in dreams back to Dixie, it seems, When you hear that old time song.
Hush-a-bye ma baby, go to sleep on Mammy's knee, Journey back to Dixieland in dreams again with me; It seems like your Mammy was there once again, And the darkies were strummin' that same old refrain.
Way down in Missouri where I learned this lullaby, When the stars were blinkin' and the moon was climbin' high, And I hear Mammy Cloe, as in days long ago, Singin' hush-a-bye.
These are the lyrics heard in one of the earliest recording of the song - a 1918, Edison Blue Amerol cylinder recording, #3454, which featured the singing of Marion Cox and Vernon Dalhart (who went on to be one of the first country music stars):
There is an even earlier recording, 1916, also on an Edison Blue Amerol cylinder, #2950. It is an instrumental version performed by Eugene Jaudas' Society Orchestra, which was Edison's studio band:
The song continued to be a standard in the repertoire of dance bands although increasingly, people - reportedly including Harry Truman, found the lyrics to be racially insensitive. Perhaps the last recorded version to use the original lyrics was the 1946 version by Eddie Howard and his orchestra:
That same year, 1946, the Fontaine Sisters released a version with modified lyrics - "pickaninny" became "little babe" and "darkies" became "folks."
In 1947, Gene Autry sang "little tot" and "old folks"; in 1948, Perry Como sang "little boy" and "old folks"; and when the Missouri legislature debated making Missouri Waltz the state song in 1949, James Neal,one of the four black members of the Missouri legislature, proposed that the words "pickaninny, mammy and darkies" be replaced by the words "little child, mommy and old folks." From that point forward the lyrics for the Missouri State Song became:
Hush-a-bye, ma baby, slumbertime is comin' soon; Rest yo' head upon my breast while Mommy hums a tune; The sandman is callin' where shadows are fallin', While the soft breezes sigh as in days long gone by.
Way down in Missouri where I heard this melody, When I was a little child upon my Mommy's knee; The old folks were hummin'; their banjos were strummin'; So sweet and low.
Strum, strum, strum, strum, strum, Seems I hear those banjos playin' once again, Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, That same old plaintive strain.
Hear that mournful melody, It just haunts you the whole day long, And you wander in dreams back to Dixie, it seems, When you hear that old time song.
Hush-a-bye ma baby, go to sleep on Mommy's knee, Journey back to Dixieland in dreams again with me; It seems like your Mommy is there once again, And the old folks were strummin' that same old refrain.
Way down in Missouri where I learned this lullaby, When the stars were blinkin' and the moon was climbin' high, Seems I hear voices low, as in days long ago, Singin' hush-a-bye.
Today there are countless versions of the Missouri Waltz first captured by Frederick Knight Logan. What is today's most watched version of Missouri Waltz on YouTube? It is a sparse, guitar and vocal rendition recorded, probably in 1973 by Johnny Cash. It was never released on a commercial record but is part of a "bootleg collection" released in the 2006 album, Personal File:
As a last reference to Logan's Missouri Waltz, the 2010 move, Winter's Bone, very effectively used an a capella version of Missouri Waltz under the opening credits. It is sung by Marideth Sisco, who grew up in the Ozark highlands of Missouri and brings a country, some might say hillbilly, authenticity to the song as a lullaby. A listen is highly recommended.
Logan's Missouri Waltz is by far the most famous but it was not the first or last Missouri waltz. The earliest Missouri Waltz found dates to 1850. It was composed by C.H. Weber and a copy of the original sheet music is available in the Notated Music Collection of the U.S. Library of Congress. A computer generated transcription of the piece can be heard below.
Sheet music for two other nineteenth century Missouri waltzes are available from the Library of Congress:
Because of the long term popularity of Logan's Missouri Waltz there are very few other Missouri waltzes which gained enough popularity to be recorded or published broadly. One interesting exception is When They Played That Old Missouri Waltz written and performed by Pee Wee Russell and his Golden West Cowboys in 1949. They recorded the song in 1950 on the RCA Victor label (480179). It is interesting, first, because the song actually quotes Logan's Missouri Waltz as part of the melody and, second, because in 1947, Pee Wee Russell wrote the music for the most famous of all state waltzes, Tennessee Waltz. Listen below.
One of the joys of creating a blog like this is the discovery of new songs and new artists. Here's a gem discovered through Missouri waltzes - David Hakan. Haken is a singer-songwriter from Kansas City, Missouri and he has created one of the few 21st century Missouri waltzes. Titled The Missouri Waltz, it appears on his 2013 album, Out of Print. He has recorded at least nine other album (all available from bandcamp) and tours regularly. If you are lucky you might catch him on the road with his Gypsy Wagon Studio. If you do, be sure and ask him to sing The Missouri Waltz:
A second 21st century Missouri waltz is New Missouri Waltz recorded by Doug Gittings on his 2010 CD, Missouri Valley. Gittings was born in Rock Hill, Missouri and after travels and travails that read like a novel, he has returned to Missouri to the town of Clarksville where he founded the Missouri Music Hall. His New Missouri Waltz was recorded in that Hall:
Not included in this blog:
There are fewer examples of copyrighted songs which were never broadly published or recorded for Missouri than for other states - no doubt because of the dominant popularity of Logan's Missouri Waltz. There are a few however. Those listed below either have waltz in the title or are listed in the copyright as being waltzes. It is not easy to do a thorough copyright search so there are no doubt others.
1921, I'm Looking for That Man Who Wrote that Old Missouri Waltz, words and music copyrights to Jack Humphreys
1923, Dreamy Missouri, copyrights to L.F. Novack
1923, Take me back again to dear old mammy, she's my sweet Missouri rose, words and music copyrights to C. Eugene McClanahan
1924, Take me back to Old Missouri, words and music copyrithts to Walter C. Alheim
1944, Missouri Waltz Song, words and music copyrights to Leon Krickhaus
1947, The New Missouri Waltz, words and music copyrights to Eileen Susan Denen
1948, That Old Missouri Waltz, words and music copyrights to Elmer Newman
In 2007, Variety reports that there was movie titled Missouri Waltz starring Karen Black. It is not to be found in IMDB so perhaps it was never released. But in 2014, there was released a four minute movie titled Missouri Waltz, starring Buddy the dog.
Piney River Brewing Company of Bucyrus, Missouri brews "Missouri Waltz with Rasberries", a sour ale aged in Missouri oak barrels. For those keeping score, there is also a "Kentucky Waltz" beer.
There are two books with Missouri Waltz in the title:
And, finally, a simplified score for those who want to create their own version of Missouri Waltz. The score is a rough transcription of the song as found in the 1918 Amberol recording by Cox and Dalhart. Many versions leave out the D minor section or the short instrumental bridge - both of which are in this transcription.
Mississippi does not have an official state waltz but it does have a waltz which is well known to bluegrass fans - Mississippi Waltz written by Bill Monroe, the same man who wrote the better known Kentucky Waltz. The tune was first recorded in March of 1976, on an album on County label, Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe. Kenny Baker (1926-2011) played fiddle with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys for twenty-five years and recorded many albums with the group but he also recorded on his own. According to the Rosenberg and Wolfe book, The Music of Bill Monroe, Monroe gave Baker three tunes he had written but never recorded for that 1976 album - Mississippi Waltz was one of them. When Baker went to the studio to make the record, Monroe happened to drop by. When Baker asked him if he wanted to play a bit, Monroe picked up a mandolin and played for the entire recording session so it is Monroe you hear on the mandolin in the video below.
There are literally hundreds of covers of Monroe's Mississippi Waltz in recordings and YouTube videos, too many to review here but, if you have a sense of humor you might enjoy Ahren Buchheister's highly unusual cover of Mississippi Waltzhere.
There are Mississippi waltzes which were created both before and after Monroe's classic. One of the earliest noted was composed in 1883 by Howard Harris and published by Armand E. Blackmar. Blackmar's publishing company was founded in 1860 in New Orleans and was the most successful music publisher in the Confederacy during the American Civil War. A copy of piano sheet music for the Harris Mississippi Waltz is available in the Notated Music collection of the U.S. Library of Congress. A computer generated rendition of the waltz is available below.
There are other Mississippi waltzes in sheet music form from the era including:
An even earlier waltz titled Rose of Mississippi Waltz composed by S. Markstein, published by Horace Waters in New York in 1856. A copy can be viewed here.
References are found to sheet music for piano of a Mississippi Waltz written by B.R. Lignowski, and published by A.E. Blackmar (see above) in 1869.
In 1926, a group of musicians from Sebastopol, Mississippi formed a band and called themselves the Leake County Revelers (a portion of Sebastopol is in Leake County). The Revelers were one of the most popular string band in the South in the 1920's and 1930's. They had a Saturday night radio show broadcast from Jackson, Mississippi and recorded more than forty records, most of them on the Columbia label. One of those records, recorded in 1929, featured Mississippi Moon Waltz, probably composed by Nat Goldstein:
Vassar Clements makes his second visit to this blog (his first was for the Florida Waltz) with a second cut from his 1970 album, Twenty Country Waltzes. That album was reissued in 1998 as a CD with the title 20 Fiddle Tunes & Waltzes. There is no indication on the record of who composed the Mississippi Waltz he plays here - it is probably traditional.
In 1977, Joel Mabus started his long recording career in a studio in Potterville, Michigan. The resulting record, Grassroots, contained Mississippi Waltz which he wrote, sang and self-accompanied on his Martin D-21. You can read more about the background of that first recording and listen to five additional tracks on Joel's website. Since this first album, Joel has recorded an additional 27 albums and written (at least) three more waltzes but to this listener's ear, none surpasses the gentle story telling of his Mississippi Waltz:
In dramatic contrast to Joel Mabus's gentle sound, our last Mississippi Waltz, composed by sax player Chris Potter, is a modern jazz piece played by Alex Sipiagin and his combo. It is to be found on the album, Overlooking Moments, on the CrissCrossJazz label.
Audio files are not currently available but there is evidence of at least three more recordings of Mississippi waltzes:
Hal McCoy recorded Donald Duffy's Mississippi Waltz on the Imperial label (8052) in 1949.
The August 7, 1948 issue of Billboard Mazine reported that the Skytoppers recorded Mississippi Waltz on the Victor label (20-3056)
The June 2, 1947 Cash Box magazine reported that the Dixie Revelers had released Mississippi Waltz on Eagle Records (No. 753).
Not included in this review was a song titled Mississippi Waltz recorded in 2012 by Emanuele Dabbano under the pseudonym of Clark Kent Phone Booth on an album titled Vonnegut, Andromeda & the Tube-Heart Geometry Just as curious as the pseudonym and the album title is the fact that the song is in duple time and is in no way a waltz. You can listen to the song on YouTube here.
Also not included are the many songs which refer to the Mississippi river rather than to the state of Mississippi. There are some fine example of such songs on YouTube. To mention a few:
A search of copyright listings available through the Internet Archives found many Mississippi waltzes. Digital access to copyrights are limited and there are no doubt even more than shown here. No evidence was found that these were ever published or performed. Those copyrights include:
Missisippi Waltz, 1920 to G. Lustig Mississippi Valse, 1920 to Michael Rapone Mississippi Waltz, 1920 to Mrs. Z.P. Lusk Mississippi, 1922 to Fred Godfrey Mississippi Moon, 1922 to Nat Goldstein Mary from Mississippi, 1923 words and music to Dorothy Darling Mississippi Moonbeams, 1923 words to B. Hagner and music to Jack Vincent Mississippi Moon, 1931 words to V. Fitzgerald and music to Eugene Platz?? Mississippi Skies, 1931 words to Jay Whidden and music to Jay Whidden, Sam Kern and Vic Ford Mississippi Moon, 1931 words to V. Fitzgerald and music to Eugen Platzman Somewhere Down in Mississippi, 1943 to Alirene McDonald Stribling The Mississippi Waltz, 1948 to Erwin King Mississippi, 1949 to Fred Godfrey Mississippi Waltz, 1949 music to Robert Louis Carleton and words to U.G. Gargus The Mississippi Waltz, 1949 music to Hal Chanslor and words to Dolly Odessa Bynum Mississippi Waltz, 1951 words and music to Wiley Guyce Moore Mississippi Waltz, 1952 to Bob Miller (this one was also registered with ASCAP, none of the others were) Mississippi Waltz, 1952 words to Ralph Sones and music to James Charles McNeil Mississippi Waltz, 1953 words and music to Jimmy Boyd Mississippi Waltz, 1953 words to Floyd Elbert Watkins and music to Floyd Lane Crocker The Mississippi Waltz, 1953 words to Gerald W. Ammons and music to Ronald Buck Mississippi Waltz, 1953 to John Amodio Mississippi Waltz, 1953 to Georgia Jane Crocker Mississippi Waltz, 1953 to Ken Watkins Mississippi Waltz, 1955 words and music to Buddy Bain Mississippi Waltz, 1955 to Obie Lee Black The Mississippi Waltz, 1955 words and music to Otis Youngren Mississippi Waltz, 1955 to Peggy Black The Mississippi Waltz, 1957 words to Mrs. A.C. Womack and music to Gene Brooks Mississippi Waltz, 1957 to Travis Wommack Mississippi Waltz, 1966 words and music to Will B. Stollby The Mississippi Waltz, 1975 words and music to Erwin King The Mississippi Waltz, 1976 words and music to Howard Chandler Franks, Sr.
As is traditional for this blog, a simplified score is to be found below - actually two scores this time. The first is an approximation of Monroe's Mississippi Waltz and the second is of the Mississippi Waltz played by Vassar Clements.
Minnesota does not have an official state waltz but the state has not been ignored by songwriters. Perhaps the most common waltz celebrating Minnesota is an old-time fiddle tune, probably traditional with Norwegian roots, titled Minnesota Waltz. While it has escaped discussion on Clawhammer Mike's excellent Minnesota Fiddle Tune Project blog, it is captured on his CD, a kickstarter project. You can listen to it here played by the Mike's own Temporary String Band. Mike told this blog that he learned the tune from a home recording made by Phil Nusbaum in the seventies while Phil was researching Norwegian Minnesotan fiddlers. The Minnesotan fiddler he recorded was Ed Selvaag (1909-2012). The photo in the video below comes from a video made by Dave Simkins when Ed Selvaag was 100 years old. Listen to Ed Selvaag himself play Minnesota Waltz:
If you want to learn the tune, you will find a simplified score, as arranged by Tim Wankel here. Or you could watch the video below where Anabel Njoes teaches the tune at a Jumpstart Your Fiddle workshop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
Marcus Eads has created a lap dulcimer version of the same Minnesota Waltz which you can listen to here (it is worth clicking this link just to see the barn picture).
About an hour and a half's drive south of Ed Selvagg's, near the town of Sunberg, Minnesota, lived Elmo Wick. Wick was born in 1924 into a musical family and got his first fiddle at the age of eleven. At the age of sixteen he was a professional fiddler playing for local dances. The demands of a growing family led him to give up the fiddle and make a living driving heavy equipment for the county road crew; but, in 1970, he picked the fiddle back up and learned to read music just so he could write down all those tunes he learned as a kid. In addition to the tunes he remembered, he wrote a few new ones including Minnesota Valsen, the title honoring his Norwegian roots. The Minnesota State Fiddlers Association (MFSA) was the recipient of Wick's tunes and $12 will buy a copy of his tunes directly from MSFA. Mary Pat Kleven, President of the MFSA indicates that they have adopted Wicks' Minnesota Valsen as the unofficial state waltz of Minnesota. The MFSA has also provided a video of member Carla Manning playing Minnesota Valsen accompanied first by Gilmore Lee on guitar and then additionally by Jeanette Ruff on the viola.
Here's Minnesota Valsen played on a traditional Norwegian Hardanger Fiddle by Inna Larsen. The Hardanger fiddle not only has the four bowed strings of other violins but also has a set of four or five additional strings which run under the bowed strings. They are tuned to vibrate sympathetically with music produced by the bowed strings producing a fuller, richer more continuous sound than that from an ordinary violin. Ms. Larsen is a resident of Wisconsin, a member of Hardanger Fiddle Association of America and of the contra dance band, Dark of the Moon.
You can also find a video featuring more than twenty fiddlers playing Minnesota Valsen in the second half of this video. If you want to enjoy playing the tune, you can find a score on The Session under the title of Minnesota Mazurka.
There is a totally different ethnic vibe in the Minnesota Waltz composed and copyrighted in 1970 by Bob Ross (you can buy a piano arrangement here.) . It is often performed by Polka Hall of Fame member, Ray Dorschner, and his band, the Rainbow Valley Dutchmen. They recorded a CD to celebrate Dorschner's induction into the Polka Hall of Fame which you can purchase here. You can hear the Minnesota Waltz from that CD below:
YouTube also has a live performance of Ross's Minnesota Waltz performed by Mike Cielecki who plays trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, banjo, accordion, guitar, and keyboards for the Rainbow Valley Dutchman. He just plays the accordion here:
The Pittsburgh band, The Damaged Pies, has a completely different Minnesota waltz. The Damaged Pies have been around since 1987 under the leadership of Steve Bodner. They have released more than a dozen albums with one of their latest being The Stars on a Summer's Night which contains The Minnesota Waltz. The album shows the amazing breadth of Bodner's interest ranging from the grunge rock sound of Dolly Byrd to the Dylanesque sound of Two Separate Doors to the gentle acoustic, tight harmony of The Minnesota Waltz (which Bodner wrote) - sounding ever so much like it came from the pen of Paul Simon. Listen carefully to the lyrics and ask yourself, why is the tune called The Minnesota Waltz? Bodner explained in a note to this blog, "I wrote the song about a friend of mine who has since passed away. About 20 years ago her husband passed away. She said to me every morning she makes coffee, though she never drinks a cup. I asked her why and she said it made her feel like he was still around. I held that thought forever trying to find just the right lyrics, after many false starts I got something I liked. The chorus is 'Its been so long but not at all, memories remain throughout it all, from spring to fall from hello to their last waltz.' I chose waltz because I could just picture them dancing together while this song played. The Minnesota part is that she was from Minnesota."
A faithful reader of this blog may have noticed that the "country waltz" so typical of state waltzes has not yet appeared. That is about to change. Thanks to record collector and creator of the blog Some Local Loser, a recording of Minnesota Waltz from about 1970 on the Recar label by Slim Anderson (Derrald Rile Anderson, Sr.) has been preserved. "Slim" both wrote and sings the waltz. Somelocalloser shared a copy with this blog (many thanks).
If you are a Contra dance musician you no doubt know the names Jay Unger, Jerry Holland and Bob McQuillen - they have written many wonderful waltzes that are staples at Contra dance functions. There is another name that now should be added to that list - Laura Zisette. Ms. Zisette, a former music professor at Utah State University, is "Momma Possum" in the band Toss the Possum which features her son, Rob, on fiddle and, often, her daughter Jane or Bonnie Insull on flute and whistle. Zisette and her son have written over 100 waltzes, some of them are featured on their new CD, Waltzing the Possum 'Round the Room. Fortunately for this blog, one of her best is titled Leaving Minnesota. Zisette explained the title in a note to this blog, "...we lived in Minnesota on Lake Minnetonka for three and a half years. I played in four different bands there. We loved it! Loved the culture, loved the traditions. We had to move unexpectedly and so that was my goodbye waltz - a bittersweet offering of how much we loved it and how much we would miss it." Highly unusual for the state waltz genre, this hauntingly beautiful tune is in a minor key. You can listen below and find a score, generously provided by Ms. Zisette, at the end of this blog.
There is also a recording of Beautiful Minnesota Waltz composed by G.O. Potter and played on the Hammond organ by Mel Kious on the K&K record label, number 1016. An audio file is not available but at the time of writing this blog, the record was available from Amazon.com.
There are two piano sheet music versions of Minnesota waltzes:
A set of six 19th century waltzes composed for piano by Louis F. Gehrke titled Sounds of The Minnesota. They were published in 1870 by Whittemore, Swan & Stephens, Detroit and are available here from the Digital Music Collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.
Happy Minnesota Waltz by Paul Lawrence, composed in 1971 and published by Paul Lawrence, N.Y., N.Y. At the time of writing this blog a copy was available from ebay.
A search of Google Books and the Internet Archive uncovered copyrights for ten additional Minnesota waltzes which may be interesting but are not readily accessible.
Minnesota Waltz, 1940 to Edwin Jay Bowrin
Minnesota Waltz, 1907 to Blanche Chester
Minnesota Prairie Fire Waltz, 1907 to ??
Minnesota Waltz, 1951, words and music to Durward Lawrence Bailey
The Minnesota Waltz, 1953, words and music by Olaf J. Haugland, arranged by Jean Walz
Minnesota Waltz, 1953, words and music by Lee Bass
The Minnesota Waltz, 1964, words and music by Sigurd A. Severtson
The Minnesota Waltz, 1964 by Paul Sevick
Minnesota Waltz, 1954, words and music by Ronald Alexander Pia & Jack Bernhardt
Beautiful Minnesota, a waltz, 1945 by Goral O. Potter
In addition, there is a Minnesota Waltz in an 1853 music instruction book titled The Ladies' Pets by Ch. Grobe.
