Looking at the square dance world today, you will find many areas that have a shortage of callers or no caller at all. This may be hard to believe in cities that have many talented callers available, but it is a fact. A sad fact when you consider that some of these regions were flush with callers, dancers, and clubs not so long ago.
This dearth of callers is reminiscent of the early days of modern square dancing. In that era people turned to recordings to learn square dancing and maintain their skills. Really, the square dance recording business got it’s fundamental start not by making music for callers, but by producing media for dancers. Early on in the form of 78 RPM albums (multiple shellac discs bound in a book) evolving to the 33 1/3 RPM vinyl long-play records then cassette tapes and finally digital. These recordings were done in a studio, often with a square of dancers in another room moving along to the caller so his timing would be correct (or close). The music was clean, the vocals were clear, the material used was tailored to the occasional dancer or the avid dancer. More than a few clubs used square dance albums as their club caller – they had no choice.
Are you without a caller today? Here is a possible solution.
- Studio quality recordings of some of the best callers in the world.
- Background music by some of the best musicians that every played in the studio.
- Listening options of streaming (listening live) or downloading (saving for later use)
- Use of all the recordings with permission granted by the copyright holder.
- Close to 200 individual recordings of patter calls, singing calls, and contras.
- NO CHARGE for streaming or downloading. Ever.
Made available at buddyweavermusic.podbean.com
These recordings come from the Blue Star, Hi Hat, Dance Ranch, Lore, R&R Video labels. They are audio files in MP3 format and may be played through a computer, smart phone, or MP3 player. Some of the callers featured are today’s names like Mike Sikorsky, Mike Seastrom, Eric Henerlau, Buddy Weaver, Ken Bower while some of the callers are names from yesterday like Marshall Flippo, Johnnie Wykoff, Dave Taylor, Jerry Helt, Bob Fisk. The recorded square dances span the years from 1962 to present. Some tracks may contain calls that are not in popular use today, but they are easily learned from the included written file.
Each podcast is one recording. New recordings are added every weekday. Be a subscriber to receive notifications of new podcasts being added. As of this writing, there have been over 9000 downloads in less than a year since the podcasts began.
In closing, it should be noted that more than a few callers use these recordings to “research” calling material, dance figures, style of calling, and background music. They are provided free for everyone, but donations are helpful to cover production costs and keep the podcasts coming.
