If the title of this blog was Disco Across the States, New York would be ready with their official state song I Love New York; but, sadly, the state of New York has no official waltz.
The best known waltz celebrating the state of New York is the Upstate New York Waltz written in 2009 by Si Kahn and Tom Chapin. The song provides a tour through twenty towns in upstate New York with plenty of smiles on the way. The towns go by pretty fast but you can slow them down by reading the lyrics here. Chapin recorded it on his album Let the Bad Times Roll which you can hear on YouTube but Chapin's live performance below brings a little more personality to the song.
Those of a certain age remember the Weavers. Echos of that great group still exist in the harmonies and instrumentation of the group known as Hudson Valley Sally. On their very first album, creatively titled Hudson Valley Sally, the group offered their cover version of the Kahn/Chapin Upstate New York Waltz. You can their album version on YouTube but it is more fun watching a subset of the original five person group do it live:
Renaud Lhoest (violin and piano) joins a trio of musicians -Benoît Casen(guitar and banjo), Benjamin Gillis(violin) and Boris Iori(guitar and harmonica) to form the Belgian group, Big Sun. On their album, Big Sun, they have included a gentle waltz titled New York Waltz presumably composed by Lhoest. Surely this waltz refers to the natural beauty of the state, not to the excitement of New York City.
Jazz pianist Soo Cho has included her composition, New York Waltz, on the CD Little Prince which you can hear on YouTube but the live performance posted below brings a little more life to the tune. It is a little difficult to hear a waltz in all those notes but Ms. Cho has been kind enough to post a score for the work and with that score in hand, you will find the trumpet and piano playing the waltz starting 3'23" into the video. There are hints of the waltz earlier but it is deconstructed almost to the point of invisibility. See if you can hear the waltz in the video below.
Other waltzes celebrating New York for which video is not available:
Lars-Luis Linek, a German composer and blues musician who favors the harmonica, recorded New York Waltz (probably composed by Linek) on a 1996 CD titled Harmonica Trio on the EMI/selected sound label.
In the soundtrack of the movie Reds there is a waltz composed by Dave Grusin titled The New York Waltz. The piece is only slightly over a minute long and you can hear much of it here.
A standard search on Google will suggest that the CD, America Again, by pianist Lara Downes contains New York Waltz I, II and III. There are indeed three waltzes by New York composers on the album but none are titled New York Waltz. The CD is, nevertheless, highly recommended.
In 1978, Willie Guy Rainey was seventy-seven years old when he made made his first record, titled eponymously, Willie Guy Rainey, on the Southland label (SLP-7). That record contains a song titled New York Waltz. You can hear it here. With a title like that, it should belong in this blog; but, unfortunately, it is not a waltz - it is a fine piece of stride piano in solid 4/4 time.
That New York Waltz, 1922, words and music to Clinton A. Kemp Souvenir of New York: waltz, 1938, music to Joseph Julian Michalski The New York Waltz, 1947, words and music to Hana Senger New York Waltz, 1955, words and music to Berthold Mayer New York Waltz, 1958, music to Joseph Liebling The New York Waltz, 1969, words and music to Clayton H. Warner
New Mexico has five state songs: the official state song, the Spanish language state song, the state ballad, the state bilingual song and the official cowboy song. Two of those are waltzes - the Spanish language song, Asi Es Nuevo Mexico by Amadeo Lucerno, and the bilingual song, Mi Lindo Nuevo Mexico by Pablo Mares. New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Roberto Mondragon sang Asi Es Nuevo Mexico to the New Mexico legislature in 1971 and led its adoption as the state Spanish Language song. Lieutenant Governor Mondragon tells the story behind the song and sings it in the excellent video below by Andy Fertal.
You can hear the original version of Asi Es Nuevo Mexico as sung by the composer, Amadeo Lucerno here at the University of New Mexico Libraries' Digital Collection.
Surprisingly, no digital audio or video files of Mares' Mi Lindo Nuevo Mexico have been found although there is a melody score with lyrics to be found here.
Jay Ungar, the composer of one of the most recognized and performed waltzes of the twentieth century, Ashokan Farewell, wrote a waltz in the year 2000 for a fellow fiddler who was a frequent instructor at his Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp. The fellow fiddler was Junior Daugherty from La Luz, New Mexico. It was in honor of Junior's 70th birthday and he initially called it Junior's Senior Moment but later decided that a better title for the long run would be New Mexico Waltz. In 2003, Junior recorded it on his Lights of Pinon album with its proper title, New Mexico Waltz. You can find a score in Ungar's tune book, Catskill Mountain Waltzes and Airs. There are other recordings of Ungar's New Mexico Waltz on YouTube, but Daugherty's is the original:
There are at least four other tunes titled New Mexico Waltz on YouTube.
One of those four is special. Written by a special person - Gair Linhart, a poet, a musician, a novelist, an artist and an organizer. Linart is one of 82 people living in the village of La Joya, New Mexico, a place he first visited in1973 from his native Cleveland, Ohio to visit a friend. According to a profile published in Albuquerque The Magazine, he "lived the life of a troubadour" until 1984 when he moved permanently to La Joya and purchased an old adobe ruins (a 100 year old winery) which he restored. In 1989, he found his special calling when he went to work for Los Lunos Hospital and Training School for people with developmental disabilities. Inspired by the people he met there he developed a technique for tuning instruments in open C so all could play without hitting a wrong note. Los Lunos is no longer but Linhart took his tuning technique and in 1999, he organized and founded the non-profit Special Orchestra, open to all. They meet "whenever they can" in Albuquerque and Belen, New Mexico and have performed at many folk festivals. Others have followed Linhart's lead and organized their own Special Orchestras. You can find everything you need to know to start one in your area at the Special Orchestra website. Like most such non-profits, they operate on a shoestring budget. You can help with a direct donation through their website or by buying some of Linhart's books or CD's or art.
You can hear and see Linhart and his Special Orchestra perform New Mexico Waltz at the 2017 Albuquerque Folk festival in the video below.
Here's what is known about Cotton Harp. His birth name was Clyde Melvin Harp but everyone called him Cotton. He was born in 1930, served in the Navy on the U.S.S. Sproston which was built in Orange, Texas. Cotton was married to Marlene (not sure when) and died in 2011. He started playing in bands while in the Navy and never stopped - his last band was called Cimarron. He lived in Red Bluff, California at the time of his death. He wrote and sang country music. In 1982, he recorded an album titled My Kind of Country (Frog label, LRP-401). That album contained the song New Mexico Waltz and you can hear it below.
Elliott's Ramblers played their first concert in the historic KiMo Theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1984. The Ramblers at the point consisted of Elliott Rogers on guitar and lead vocals, his wife, Janice, on bass, Wayne Shrubsall on banjo (Shrubsall has a PhD in banjos - no joke) and Gerald Larribas on mandolin. Larrisbas was later replaced by Claude Stephenson (another PhD - this one in Matachines music) to form the Ramblers that are heard in the video below. Janice and Elliot's move to Texas broke up the band as a regularly performing unit but they still come together and perform at festivals in New Mexico, the most recent one being at the 2017 Sante Fe Traditional Music Festival. The Ramblers put together two albums - the 1996, 'Til Love Comes Around and the 2003, "Live" Gospel Music Show which are still available from many sources. Rogers' New Mexico Waltz appears on that first album is as close to a classic state waltz as can be found for the state of New Mexico.
The fourth of this set of songs titled New Mexico Waltz was written by German composer Kurt Adametz who is best known for scoring television documentaries. His New Mexico Waltz was written for the 2008 documentary, Flucht ins Ungewisse. Three versions of it (guitar, piano and ensemble) were made available in a record of the sound track for that documentary on the ORF label. Listen to the guitar version below.
While Maryland will surely retain the title for the first state waltz as protest song (it was a protest against President Lincoln and the Union Army), The New Mexico Nuclear Waltz by Peter Neils is surely the most recent. Listen well to the words. Mr. Neils knows of what he sings - he is the former president of the Los Alamos Study Group, an important advocacy group on the topic of nuclear disarmament. You can read the full story behind the song here. Neils is from the state of Maine and returned there to record the album, Desert Dreams, which contains The New Mexico Nuclear Waltz. You can understand why he returned to Maine to make the recording if you read about Hearstudios - it sounds like an extraordinary place. Listen below.
The title of Joe Hunt's Waltz Across New Mexico Too clearly references Ernest Tubb's famous state waltz, Waltz Across Texas, but the resemblance ends at the title. Joe's full name was Joel Timothy Hunt but for most of his career he was known as "Little Joe" Hunt. His career took from a job as the "America's fastest banjo player" on Eddie Arnold's TV show to appearances on the Grand Old Opry and the Louisiana Hayride. In 2009 he was added to the Arkansas's Walk of Fame (he called Arkadelphia home). He wrote many songs including Waltz Across New Mexico Too which is one of fourteen songs on Hunt's Easy Country album issued in 2006. The songs are not classic country but they sound like it with a few exceptions where a synthesizer set to "senior citizen mode" is added to Hunt's usual western combo - sadly one of those exceptions is Waltz Across New Mexico Too.
As a result of this writer's sloth, you have missed the 2018 Big Barn Dance Music Festival in Taos, New Mexico - it was held September 6,7 and 8. You might have heard Michael Hearne and his band, South by Southwest, perform New Mexico Rain, a fine waltz written by Hearne who is also the organizer and prime mover behind this festival. New Mexico Rain was written when he first moved from Texas to Red River, New Mexico (near Taos). Hearne sometimes refers to it his greatest hit. The video below is of a live performance by Hearne with his good friend and fellow New Mexico songwriter, Shake Russell, from a 2006 performance in Plano, Texas. He has also recorded it (twice) with his band: on the CD Honky Tonk Roads and on the Live on Radio CD. It has also been recorded by folk music legends, Bill (who is Michael's uncle) and (the late) Bonnie Hearne and by the Tex-Mex Country star, Johnny Rodriguez, who inexplicably changed the lyrics and title to Mexico Rain when he put it on his You Can Say that Again CD. John Denver never recorded it but he should have. You can see Hearne and Russell sing the song below, you can hear Bill and Bonnie sing it here, and you can hear Johnny Rodriguez sing it here.
Calvin Boles co-wrote a song with R.D. Blankenship called simply New Mexico. In 1964, he recorded it on a long playing record on the Yucca label titled New Mexico - Ballads of the Southwest (LPM-103). The rhythm track suggests that Boles considered the song more of a ballad than a waltz but it is in 3/4 time and is a perfectly good, in fact, quite dance-able waltz. Boles wore many hats. The Dirt City Chronicles blog has an excellent summary of Boles' career. He was an entrepreneur who, in 1958, started his own record label, Yucca, using his garage as a recording studio. He was a song writer who wrote more than 500 songs. He was a singer, guitarist and band leader who eventually moved to Nashville, although without much success. In his spare time, he was an insurance agent in Alamogordo, New Mexico and that is what paid his bills. The waltz/ballad New Mexico almost made it big. After Boles death in 2004, a bill (House Bill 81) was written in the New Mexico state legislature naming New Mexico as the official state cowboy song. It never got the support it needed to become official and eventually another song, Under New Mexico Skies, was selected as the official state cowboy song. Boles wrote a second waltz celebrating New Mexico and named it New Mexico Waltz (there is a 1949 copyright to Boles for that title). It was recorded, again on the Yucca label, on his sixth long playing record, Country Dozen (LPM-106). A digital copy of that waltz has not been found but you can hear the waltz/ballad New Mexico below.
There are two other waltzes celebrating New Mexico available for on-line listening. The first comes from an unlikely source, The English Contra Dance Band (ECDB). A member of the ECDB learned the tune at a 1989 workshop led by Bayou Seco in Sidmouth (England) but the name of the waltz has been forgotten. Bayou Seco is a folk duo based in Silver City, New Mexico so ECDB called the tune New Mexico Waltz. In a private communication with Jeanie McLerie and Ken Keppeler of Bayou Seco, it was learned that they call the tune Waltz Emiliano because they learned it from Cleofes Ortiz of Bernal, NM who, in turn, learned it from his cousin, Emiliano Ortiz. Historians believe that some Sephardic jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition, immigrated to New Mexico via Mexico beginning in the early 16th century. Jeanie and Ken speculate that this waltz might have its roots in that Sephardic jew immigration. Listen here - it is a fine waltz. You can hear Cleofes Ortiz's version here.
You will find a tune titled New Mexico Waltzhere on Soundcloud. This version was collected by Alan Musgrove from the playing of Jeff Conroy from Glenquarry, New South Wales, Australia. Musgrove is a well known song collector and performer in Australia but if he has shared the story behind Conroy's New Mexico Waltz, it has not been found. You can find the score here.
There are two additional recorded versions of New Mexico waltz but digital files from them are not yet available:
New Mexico Waltz, written by Jack (Tex) Williams. Performed (in 1948 or 1949) by Williams and the Hired Hands on a 78 rpm record, Miltone 5230. Note there is a more famous Tex Williams whose birth name was Sollie Paul Williams - he did not make this recording.
New Mexico Waltz, recorded by Ginger Smith on a 45 rpm record on the Brazos label. Available from Amazon.com. No other information has been found.
A search of the copyright records available at the Internet Archive uncovered the following additional examples of New Mexico Waltz. No evidence was found that any of these were ever recorded or published.
New Mexico Waltz, 1949, words and music to Warner Elmer Farver.
The New Mexico Waltz, 1949, music to William Moody
New Mexico Waltz, 1950, words and music to George Emanuel Harris
New Mexico Waltz, 1948, music to Don George and words to Reba Adell Turnbull
New Mexico Waltz, 1951, words and music to Wanda Faye Wolfe
New Mexico Waltz, 1952, words to Jack A. Osbourne and music to Jay Osborne.
New Mexico Waltz, 1953, words and music to Merl Lindsay Salathiel
New Mexico Waltz, 1970, words to Ruby May Reid and music to A. Hosey & H. Gordon
New Mexico Waltz, 1971, words, music and arrangement to Hassel Fred "Nick" Nix
For those who make their own music, a simplified score for New Mexico's official bilingual state song is provide below. Lyrics follow the score.
Lyrics
I'm singing a song of my homeland. Most wonderful place that I've seen. My song cannot fully describe it, I call it land of my dreams. New Mexico, Land of the sun where yucca blooms the sunset sighs. New Mexico, Your starry nights, your music sweet as daylight dies. My heart returns. It ever yearns to hear the desert breezes blow. Your snow, your rain, your rainbow's blend. I'm proud of my New Mexico. Yo canto de un país lindo Más bello no he visto yo, Mi canción no puede decirlo, Como mi corazón.
Nuevo México, País del sol palmillas floreciendo allí. Nuevo México, Tus noches lindas traen recuerdos para mi. Mi corazón Llora por ti me dice a mi te quiero yo. Tus sierras y tus valles Son mi lindo Nuevo México.
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.
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.
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
