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Spokane Folklore Society

Forty Years Ago ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

                                       Old Time Music and Square Dancing

                                                                                                By Penn Fix

The Forty Years Ago column relies on information from two sources for its inspiration.

Country Crossroads was a bi-monthly newsletter that provided a calendar of dances through out the Northwest as well as a related article.  The newsletter written by Penn Fix began in November 1980 and continued to 1986.  The other source comes from long time volunteer and founder of SFS, Eric Johnson who provided a detailed list of SFS sponsored events from 1977 to 1992. 

Forty years ago, one hundred and thirty dancers came to the Woman’s Club to dance squares.  Long before there was contra dancing in Spokane, there was old time square dancing.  It all began during Expo ’74.  The Gypsy Gypo String Band from Seattle featuring Sandy Bradley, Jack Link, Jerry Mitchell, and Warren Argo had been hired for the Smithsonian sponsored Folklife Festival.  One night the band had just finished a rousing set of old time fiddle tunes; Jack Link asked the crowd what else they wanted.  And out of the audience came Bill Reagan; he offered to call a square dance.  The response from the audience was so positive that Bill and the band were hired for the rest of that summer.

Bill Reagan, later known as “Wild Bill,” had grown up in Colorado in the 1930s where he learned to dance and call.  One of his peers was “Pappy” Lloyd Shaw who is acknowledged as the founder of the modern square dance movement.   Bill served in the Air Force during WWII and remained overseas until he retired in 1963.  During his time in Europe and Asia he called square dances but when he returned to the states and moved to Republic, Washington with his family he quit calling until that fateful night at the Expo 74. Bill’s absence from the United States right after the war and his decision to not call once he returned meant that he missed the continued development of the square dance scene started by Pappy Shaw.  Square dances became much more complicated which necessitated dance lessons and classes.  Bill’s dances were simple and easy to teach at public dances. 

After that summer, Sandy Bradley and the Gypos returned to Seattle and the bar, the Inside Passage, where they held weekly concerts.  But instead of just playing old time fiddle tunes, Sandy began calling squares.  She developed a repertoire of dances gathered from Bill Reagan, Lloyd Shaw, and other older callers.  At the same time club square dancing was wrapped up in clubs that hosted classes, asked members to wear matching costumes, and danced to recorded music.  Sandy, on the other hand, offered an alternative: simple easy to learn dances held in public settings with live fiddle music.  Sandy brought the “old time” square dance revival to the Northwest.

One of the first sponsored events of the newly incorporated Spokane Folklore Society In 1977 was a square dance with Sandy Bradley calling. While most of its events were concerts, the Spokane Folklore Society did sponsor two more square dances in 1979.  

In January 1980, the Spokane Folklore Society offered its first series of dances.  For the next two years, the SFS held two dances a month, one contra and the other squares.

The house band for the square dances was Sweetwater String Band led by fiddler Geoff Seitz.  And “Wild Bill” Reagan called the dances. Other square dance callers came to Spokane during this time.  Pop Wagner and his brother Bode from Minnesota were hired to play for the Expo ’74 festival.  They returned in 1980 to play and call square dances on two separate occasions. The following year Sandy Bradley returned as well as two of her proteges, Sherry Nevins and Debbie Nagusky.

The interest in square dancing in Spokane culminated with a dance held forty years ago, February 21, 1981.  The Hurricane Ridgerunners, a powerhouse band from Seattle, played for 130 dancers at the Women’s Club that night. The band featured Jerry Gallaher calling and on guitar, Mark Graham on harmonica, Armin Barnett on fiddle, and Paul Kotapish on mandolin. They also held a dance in the Coeur d’Alene at the Ivalee Dance Hall the night before and the following weekend they were in McCall and Boise, Idaho.  The tour, noted Jerry recently, was the “zenith for the band.”  In 1982, they returned to Spokane for the first of several Spring Festivals sponsored by SFS but shortly after that event, the Ridgerunners broke up.  Mark explained,” when Ronald Reagan’s era struck the flimsy old time music economy like an asteroid, everyone put on clean clothes and went to school or got a job.” 

The band’s fate reflected that of square dancing.   The popularity of contras had begun to overcome the old time square dance world.  Square dance callers like Sandy Bradley, Sherry Nevins, and Debbie Nagusky first added contras to their repertoires and then later called contras almost exclusively.  String bands remained popular because their music could be used with contras but bands that focused on traditional contra dance music from New England, Ireland, Scotland, and French Canada were in more demand.  In January 1982, the Spokane Folklore Society discontinued the monthly square dance and moved to a single contra dance on 3rd Saturdays of every month.

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