Cowboy Dances

A collection of Traditional Western Square Dances By Lloyd Shaw

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34
COWBOY DANCES
However, they say it depends on the time and the crowd as to which is their favorite and they never feel quite alike. Since the names as well as the tunes are traditional and oral, I have left them in their original spelling to illustrate this point.
Emerson G. Howard's favorites are:          **
a.  Soldiers Joy, Wild Horse, Heel and Toe Polkie, Mississippi Sawyer, Flute Music, Girl I left Behind Me, Paddie won't you Drink Some, Don't You Want to go to Heaven Uncle Joe, Durang Horn Pipe, and Grey Eagle.
Selections For Waltzes—
b.  Over the Waves, Peek a Boo, Doris Loan, My Little WEE Dog, Bohemian Waltz, Rock the Little Baby to Sleep, Dream Waltz, He's Sleeping In the Klon­dike Vail to Nite, Matcaisy, and Home Sweet Home.
c.  Red Bird, Buffalo Girls are you coming out to-nite, Irish Wash Woman, Wagner, Louie Reak, Fisher Hornpipe, Golden Slippers, Turkey in the Straw, Give the Fiddler A Dram, and Casie Jones.
You will notice that "E. G." has put in ten favorite waltzes in place of group b of the square dance tunes. I am tempted to comment on many of the tunes in these lists, but a few comments will illustrate my point sufficiently well. Take the Dream Waltz in the above list as an example. "E. G." tells me that he had played all night for a dance down in Woodward County, Oklahoma. At dawn he lay down for a little nap before having to go to work. When he awoke a strange tune was singing itself in his head. He got out his old fiddle and played it till he had it set in his mind. It is his "Dream Waltz," and other fiddlers who learned it from him call it "Emerson's Dream." The tune "Wild Horse" he heard and liked at a show. He didn't know what it was but later another fiddlin' friend heard him playing it and told him it was called "Wild Horse." He has called it that ever since. There was an old fiddler by the name of Louie Reak who claimed that he himself had "made up" a tune that he played. You will find it under the name "Louie Reak." But I must drop the stories and get on with my lists.