Wisconsin Folklore

24 Hoppwaltzes and Homebrew: Traditional Norwegian American Music from Wisconsin

24 Hoppwaltzes and Homebrew: Traditional Norwegian American Music from Wisconsin Philip Martin "Old-time music." Throughout much of America that phrase is most commonly associated with fiddlers playing the jigs and reels once prevalent at dances in rural New England, amidst the southern Appalachians, and on western ranches. In the Upper Midwest, however, "old-time music" has usually meant polkas, waltzes, and schottisches-and the phrase is a direct translation of the Norwegian gammaldans. In 1926, Henry Ford, fearing the musical influences of African Americans and "foreigners," sponsored a series of "Old-Time Fiddlers' Contests" as quintessentially "American" activities. The cranky industrialist hoped the contests would offer a "wholesome" alternative to what he regarded as the degenerate effects of jazz, thereby bending the musical tastes of Americans in an AngloCeltic direction. In some areas of the Upper Midwest, however, contestants for Ford's prizes were almost entirely Norwegian. In Fergus Falls, Minnesota, the top three performers were Norwegians, while the St. Cloud paper proclaimed, "Norwegian Dance Tunes to Be One Feature of Old Time Fiddling Bee." In Albert lea, Minnesota, enthusiastic applause greeted Botolf Bridley's Aoral celebration of two Norwegian districts: "lily of Sogn" and "lily of Valders." Fiddle Ole was a favorite in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, while the Madison contest was dominated by such Norwegians as Barneveld 's E. Pederson, Brooklyn's Ben Gulhaug, Hollandale's Olaf larson, and Madison's Knute Ellestad (see James P. leary and Richard March, Down Home Dairyland: A Listener's Guide [Madison : University of Wisconsin Extension, 1996], 15). In the mid-1970s, Philip Martin, a young would-be fiddler, discovered that while Anglo-Celtic performances still dominated the tune books and recordings said to characterize American folk fiddling, there were Norwegian old-time fiddlers aplenty in Wisconsin-yet few of their tunes and little about their lives had been documented. Armed with a tape recorder, and accompanied by photographer lewis Koch, Martin began to seek out the state's gammaldans fiddlers, their repertoires , their stories. Eventually the Martin-Koch collaboration would produce a slide-tape program and a photo-text exhibit (both called Kingdom of Fiddlers), two documentary recordings (Across the Fields and Tunes from the Amerika Trunk), the booklet which is partially reprinted here, and a book, Farmhouse Fiddlers: Music and Dance Traditions in the Rural Midwest (Mount Horeb, Wisc.: Midwest Traditions, 1994}. Philip Martin's initial work was under the aegis of Folklore Village Farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin , an organization then dedicated to highly romantic and stylized reenactments of Old World folk traditions for purposes of recreation and personal fulfillment. More compelled by the actual New World traditions happening around him, Martin eventually founded the Wisconsin Folk Museum with his wife Jean Johnson in 1986. During its ten-year existence, the Wisconsin Folk Museum produced exhibits, events, sound recor:dings, and publications concerning the folklore of Wisconsin's many ethnic and occupational cultures. In 1992 Philip Martin left the Folk Museum to found a regional press, Midwest Traditions. 259 Part Three. Music, Song, and Dance Reprinted in abridged form from Across the Fields: Traditional Norwegian-American Music from Wisconsin (Dodgeville, Wise.: Wisconsin Old Time Music Project, 1982); a version of this article appeared as "Hoppwaltzes and Homebrew" in the folksong revival publication Sing Out! 31 :3 (1985): 26-34. In 1979, photographer Lewis Koch and I began a fieldwork project to document traditional Norwegian American fiddle and button accordion music of Wisconsin. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Folklife Center with grants from the Wisconsin Humanities Council and Wisconsin Arts Board, we spent over two years interviewing oldtime musicians in their homes. Many of these visits were in the west-central "coulee country" (from the French couloir, for steep-walled valley), a hilly region bordered roughly by Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Black River Falls. Seated at kitchen tables and on living room sofas, we were served cup after cup of industrial-strength black coffee, devoured plates of open-faced sandwiches and sandbakkel cookies, and went through reels of tape and rolls of film as these Norwegian-accented farmers told of music in their rural neighborhoods which spanned half a century or more. While we visited, they drew forth well-worn instruments and, often with their wives at piano, played tune after tune from seemingly inexhaustible repertoires. The music was Norwegian American house party music, which was learned and played at rural dance gatherings in farmhouse kitchens, barns, graneries, tobacco stripping sheds, country schoolhouses and town halls throughout the early decades of...