Hootenanny
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[edit] Origin
Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in early twentieth century America to refer to things whose names were forgotten or unknown. In this usage it was synonymous with thingamajig or whatchamacallit, as in "hand me that hootenanny." Hootenanny was also an old country word for "party". Now, most commonly, it refers to a folk-music party.
According to Pete Seeger, in various interviews, he first heard the word hootenanny in Seattle, Washington in the late 1930s. It was used by Hugh Delacey’s New Deal political club to describe their monthly music fund raisers. [1] After some debate the club voted in the word hootenanny, which narrowly beat out the word wingding. Seeger, Woody Guthrie and other members of the Almanac Singers later used the word in New York City to describe their weekly rent parties, which featured many notable folksingers of the time. [2] In a 1962 interview in Time Joan Baez made the analogy that a hootenanny is to folk singing what a jam session is to jazz. [3]
[edit] Events
During the early 1960s at the height of the Folk Music era, the club The Bitter End at 147 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village had hootenannies every Tuesday night, that featured an open mike and welcomed performers known and unknown, young and old.[4]
The Hootenanny is an annual one-day rockabilly music festival held at the Oak Canyon Ranch in Irvine, S. California, which also incorporates a vintage car show.
For years there have been online Hootenannys. The most long-standing example is Small Talk At The Wall,[5] which has been going since 1999.
[edit] Recordings
- Surfin' Hootenanny is a surf pop/rock song written by Lee Hazlewood (tune) and Al Casey, and performed by Al Casey with The K-C-Ettes (aka The Blossoms). It opens the Al Casey's 1963. album Surfin' Hootenanny (issued as LP record by Sundazed Music Inc.). The song re-appeared in 1996. (in remastered version) as track 15 of Cowabunga! Set 2: Big Waves (1963.) compilation. Cowabunga! Set 2: Big Waves (1963.) is a second disc from Rhino Records' Cowabunga! The Surf Box 4 CD set compilation that contains most famous songs from the four-decade long history of surf music.
- Eels released an album titled Shootenanny!
- The rock and roll band The Replacements released their second album in 1983, entitled Hootenanny on Twin/Tone Records (see Hootenanny (album)).
- The band Weezer had a Hootenanny tour in 2008 which allowed fans to play songs with the band.[citation needed]
- The New Zealand rock band HLAH released a single entitled Hootenanny (which also appears on their 1996 album Double Your Strength, Improve Your Health, & Lengthen Your Life on the Wildside Records label) in 1997.[6]
[edit] Television
Several different television shows are named and styled after it, including:
- Hootenanny, an early 1960s musical variety show broadcast on ABC in the United States. In 2007 a set of 3 DVDs called "The Best of Hootenanny" was issued, culled from the 1963-64 ABC-TV series. It contained clips of performances by The Chad Mitchell Trio, The Limeliters and The New Christy Minstrels, and even Woody Allen as a stand-up comedian.
- In 1963 and 1964 there was a BBC 1 show called "The Hoot'nanny Show", recorded in Edinburgh. (Ref: [1]). Two albums with the same title were released, with contributions from Archie Fisher, Barney McKenna (before he joined The Dubliners), and The Corries.
- In the United Kingdom, Jool's Annual Hootenanny, a special live New Year's Eve edition of Later... with Jools Holland featuring a wide selection of musicians, has been broadcast every year since 1993.
[edit] References in Culture
- In the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, Ewell's character tells the girl (Monroe) to phone his boss and tell him he's going on a Hootenanny.
- Hootenanny is mentioned in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) - Dead Man's Party (Season 3), when Oz is discussing what kind of party should be held to celebrate Buffy's return to Sunnydale he says: "We should figure out what kinda deal this is. I mean, is it a gathering, a shindig or a hootenanny?"
- Hootenanny was mentioned in the TV series Lost in 2009, when the character Phil comes into the security room and says they have started a hootenanny.
- Fermanagh Concert Band plays a Hootenanny which is a compilation of various tunes, it is arranged by Harold L Walters. It features a musically well-crafted chicken reel for clarinets.
- The Big Chill has adopted the name for a mixed-media Sunday review - encompassing comedy and folk music - at their London venue The Big Chill House.[citation needed]
- The Family Guy episode To Love and Die in Dixie features two stereotyped southern characters fighting over whether the barn party was, in fact, a hoedown or hootenanny.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Hootenannies in Seattle, Stewart Hendrickson, Retrieved December 31, 2009
- ^ Hootenannies in Seattle, Stewart Hendrickson, Retrieved December 31, 2009
- ^ IMDB, Retrieved December 31, 2009
- ^ The History of the Bitter End, Retrieved December 31, 2009
- ^ http://www.mtp.hum.ku.dk/details.asp?ELN=500106 Petersen, Nils Holger, Music Practices around Bob Dylan, Medieval Rituals, and Modernity, Københavns, 2005 ISBN 9788763504232.
- ^ Wildside Records HLAH pages
