Name: Choose Your Partners!: Contra Dance & Square Dance Music of New Hampshire
Brand: Smithsonian/Folkways
SKU: 422187
Availability: OutOfStock

Choose Your Partners!

Rating

Album: Choose Your Partners!: Contra Dance & Square Dance Music of New Hampshire
#	Song Title	Time
1)	Farewell To Whiskey / Silver And Gold Two Step - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band
2)	Money Musk - Old New England
3)	The Woman Fiddler / Munster Lass / Rock Valley / Hillichan's Jig - Old New England
4)	Larry O'Gaff - Two Fiddles (Portland Fancy)
5)	Maggie in the Woods - Two Fiddles (Paul Jones)
6)	Mouth Of The Tobique / Reel Des Jeunes Maries / Reel De Montreal - Northern Spy
7)	Lady Of The Lake / Fisher's Hornpipe / Red-Haired Boy / Miss Thompson - Northern Spy - (Scott House Reel)
8)	Rosin The Beau / Waltz For Jane - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band
9)	Golden Slippers - Lester Bradley & Friends (Butterfly Whirl)
10)	Crooked Stovepipe - Lester Bradley & Friends (Crooked Stove Pipe)
11)	Shandon Bells / Out On The Ocean / The Lame Duck / Mug Of Brown Ale - Lamprey River Band
12)	Rising Of The Lamprey / Silver Spear / High Reel / Fireman's Reel - Lamprey River Band - (Lady Walpole's Reel)
13)	Neil Vincent's Welcome To Earth / Pig Town Fling / Durang's Hornpipe / Peace River Breakdown - Old New England
14)	The Battering Ram / The Concertina Reel / Kiley's Reel - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band - (Three Thirty Three)
15)	Cat In The Hopper / Coleraine / Shores Of Lough Gowna - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band
16)	Amelia / Great Memories

Album: Choose Your Partners!: Contra Dance & Square Dance Music of New Hampshire
#	Song Title	Time
1)	Farewell To Whiskey / Silver And Gold Two Step - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band
2)	Money Musk - Old New England
3)	The Woman Fiddler / Munster Lass / Rock Valley / Hillichan's Jig - Old New England
4)	Larry O'Gaff - Two Fiddles (Portland Fancy)
5)	Maggie in the Woods - Two Fiddles (Paul Jones)
6)	Mouth Of The Tobique / Reel Des Jeunes Maries / Reel De Montreal - Northern Spy
7)	Lady Of The Lake / Fisher's Hornpipe / Red-Haired Boy / Miss Thompson - Northern Spy - (Scott House Reel)
8)	Rosin The Beau / Waltz For Jane - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band
9)	Golden Slippers - Lester Bradley & Friends (Butterfly Whirl)
10)	Crooked Stovepipe - Lester Bradley & Friends (Crooked Stove Pipe)
11)	Shandon Bells / Out On The Ocean / The Lame Duck / Mug Of Brown Ale - Lamprey River Band
12)	Rising Of The Lamprey / Silver Spear / High Reel / Fireman's Reel - Lamprey River Band - (Lady Walpole's Reel)
13)	Neil Vincent's Welcome To Earth / Pig Town Fling / Durang's Hornpipe / Peace River Breakdown - Old New England
14)	The Battering Ram / The Concertina Reel / Kiley's Reel - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band - (Three Thirty Three)
15)	Cat In The Hopper / Coleraine / Shores Of Lough Gowna - Rodney Miller's New England Dance Band
16)	Amelia / Great Memories

Performer Notes

Recorded at Cedarhouse Sound, New London, and Fishtraks, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Includes liner notes by Jack Beard, Lynn Martin and Kate Van Winkle Keller.
All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.
New Hampshire is one of the American locales in which square dancing is most popular, both in contra dances (in which two lines of partners face each other) and square dances (in which four couples arrange themselves in a square formation). This 67-minute disc has 16 tunes suitable for the purpose, recorded in early 1999 by half a dozen bands active in the New Hampshire square dancing community. It's heaviest, as you might expect, on the fiddle, also including some dulcimer, mandolin, flute, and other instrumentation. The repertoire concentrates on music derived from British Isles and Celtic folk, including reels, jigs, and a couple of slower waltzes that break up the pace nicely; some of the songs include dance callers. It's more fun to dance to than listen to, but it's well recorded and annotated, and indeed probably good fodder for practicing these styles of folk dancing. ~ Richie Unterberger

Professional Reviews

Dirty Linen (2-3/00, p.87) - "...fills the gap [of] the traditional dance music of the New England states....Fiddles predominate, pianos are the main accompaniment, and the musical style could be likened to Canadian dance bands and Irish Ceili bands..."