Images courtesy of pinterest.com
The song below, “Grange Hall Saturday Night”, can be heard at the end of the radio show:
By the Light of the Moon: Grange Hall Dances in Washington State, is a radio documentary I produced based on interviews and recordings. I traveled around Washington recording interviews of Grange members and musicians from 1993 to 1994. The project was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Washington State Arts Commission, and the Washington State Rural Development Council.
All the records and supporting materials are housed with my archives, at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies.
You can listen to the full show and download it as well, right here:
Here’s another song that I wrote for the project. (I’m still looking for the tune.)
“I remember this one dance we went to and there was a pot-belly stove in the corner and it sounds old-fashioned, and maybe it is, but there were children there, and these children were able to hear the music and be with their parents, and they didn’t have to be left at home with a babysitter and miss out on those notes in the air and the pot luck supper at 12 and all those wonderful things. I just think our kids and other people’s kids are missing something. I really wish they would reinstate the dances. With all my heart.” Gail Secord