Hootenanny

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

It has been suggested that this article be merged into Hootenanny (disambiguation) and Placeholder name. (Discuss) Proposed since November 2020.

Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in the early twentieth century U.S. as a placeholder name 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". More recently^[when?], the word most commonly refers to a folk music party with an open mic, at which different performers are welcome to get up and play in front of an audience.

Origin of modern folk music usage[]

According to Pete Seeger he first heard the word hootenanny in Seattle, Washington in the late 1930s.^[1] It was used by Hugh DeLacy’s New Deal political club^[2] to describe their monthly music fund raisers.^[3] After some debate the club voted in hootenanny, which narrowly beat out 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.^[3] 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.^[4]

Events[]

During the early 1960s at the height of the American folk music revival, the club Gerdes Folk City at 11 West 4th Street in Greenwich Village started the folk music hootenanny tradition every Monday night, that featured an open mic and welcomed performers known and unknown, young and old.^[5] The Bitter End at 147 Bleecker Street continued the folk music hootenanny tradition every Tuesday night.^[6][7]

A weekly hootenanny has been held during the summers at Allegany State Park most years since 1972.^[8]

The Hootenanny is an annual one-day rockabilly music festival held at the Oak Canyon Ranch in Irvine, California, which also incorporates a vintage car show.^{[citation needed]}

For years there have been online hootenannies. The most long-standing example is ,^[9] which originated in 1999.

Recordings[]

• Hootenanny with the Highwaymen is a 1963 album by folk band The Highwaymen
• "" is a surf pop/rock song written by Lee Hazlewood (tune) and Al Casey, and performed by Al Casey with (aka The Blossoms). It opens Casey's 1963 album Surfin' Hootenanny (issued as LP record by Sundazed Music Inc.). The song re-appeared in 1996 (in remastered version) on the compilation. Cowabunga! Set 2: Big Waves (1963) is a second disc from Rhino Records' 4-CD set compilation that contains most famous songs from the four-decade long history of surf music.
• The Glencoves had a hit single with their release "Hootenanny", which peaked at No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963.
• Eels released an album titled Shootenanny!
• The rock and roll band The Replacements released their second album in 1983, titled Hootenanny on Twin/Tone Records.
• 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.^[10]
• A song called "We Are Having a Hootenanny" appears on The Magnetic Fields's 2010 album Realism.^[11]
• The album by Rieflin, Gunn and Fripp contains a track titled "Hootenanny At The Pink Pussycat Cafe".
• Reggae legends The Wailers recorded a song called "Hoot Nanny Hoot", sung by Peter Tosh, available on Tosh's CD The Toughest.
• Swedish 1960s folk band Hootenanny Singers included Björn Ulvaeus, who later was a member of ABBA.
• Belgian band Too Much and the White Nots released an album called Hootenanny in 2011.
• In 1964 George Jones and Melba Montgomery released a country/bluegrass album titled Bluegrass Hootenanny.
• Sheb Woolley had a hit in Australia with "Hootenanny Hoot" in 1963.
• Paul and Paula, who had a big hit with "Hey Paula" in 1963, also released a single later in that year called "Holiday Hootenanny".

Television[]

Several different television shows are named hootenanny and styled after it, including:

• Hootenanny, an early 1960s musical variety show broadcast on ABC in the United States. In 2007 a set of three DVDs called The Best of Hootenanny was issued, culled from the series. It contains 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, a BBC 1 show The Hoot'nanny Show, recorded in Edinburgh, was broadcast.^[12] 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, Jools' Annual Hootenanny, a special New Year's Eve edition of Later... with Jools Holland featuring a wide selection of musicians, has been broadcast every year since 1993.

Other uses[]

• Framus Hootenanny, a 1960s-era twelve-string guitar

See also[]

• Cèilidh
• Hoedown

References[]

Look up hootenanny in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

External links[]

• The Best of Hootenanny review, The Pseudobook Review.