Broadly defined as the folk and vernacular music of the Upper Midwest region of the United States, the term “polkabilly” conjures up seemingly contradictory imagery--a jam session, perhaps, between a Bohemian American button accordionist and an Appalachian fiddler or banjoist? As such, it is an apposite coinage to embody and support James Leary’s central arguments in Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music. Intending to shake up our possible preconceptions of “folk” music, and just what ought--or ought not--to be included in a comprehensive representation of North American vernacular musical culture, Leary contends that, while the folk and roots musics of Anglo-Celtic whites, of African-Americans, and even of Native Americans have enjoyed a lion’s share of scholarly and popular interest, folklorists and cultural musicologists have largely overlooked the Upper Midwest, an area extending from the western border of the Great Lakes to the eastern edge of the Great Plains. Part of the problem, Leary suggests, in championing the area’s ethnic and racially defined “micromusics” (to borrow Mark Slobin’s term) [1] lies in its eclectic diversity and prolific creolization. He lists Algonquian, Chippewa/Ojibwa, Iroquoian, Métis, and Sioux peoples, along with Belgians, Bosnians, Croatians, Czechs, English, Finns, French, Germans, Hollanders, Irish, Italians, Luxembourgers, Norwegians, Poles, Scotch, Serbians, Slovenians, and Swedes as contributors to--and therefore examples of--the region’s multifarious cultural make-up. He documents the creolization of these musics and their accompanying dance-steps by showing how the various ethnic threads mixed and mingled locally at seasonal gatherings, social dances, and tent shows; in the farming, logging, and mining communities; in industrialized towns; on the Chautauqua and vaudevillian circuits; and over longer distances made possible through increased ease of travel and via the mass mediation of records, radio, and telephone. “Old time music,” as the collective genre subsequently came to be dubbed, surfaced in the early 1920s; the name, according to Leary, was used “chiefly to distinguish dance bands whose repertoires tended to be familiar, rooted, and agrarian from those whose sounds were new, exotic, and urban” (27). Polkabilly, by extension, is “the Upper Midwest’s creolized take on old time music” (32), exemplified in Leary’s book by the music of the Goose Island Ramblers, a group that featured “Norwegian- and Anglo-American fiddle tunes and ballads, Scandihoovian and Dutchman dialect comedy, German and Slavic couple dances, Hawaiian guitars, rural novelty numbers, cowboy and hillbilly songs, bluegrass, rockabilly, and more” (130).
Born in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, and an active scholar of Upper Midwestern musical culture for over twenty-five years, Leary speaks with depth and authority on--and with considerable empathy for--his subject. Rather than a sweeping overview, the book hones in on the individual lives and musical careers of “Uncle Windy” Whitford, “Smokey George” Gilbertson, and Bruce Bollerud (aka “The Hollandale Wildcat”), devoting a chapter to each, with an additional chapter documenting their collective exploits as the Goose Island Ramblers, focusing in particular on the group’s extended tenure (1963-1970) at a Madison, Wisconsin, town-meets-gown tavern named Glen and Ann’s. Leary’s research is based on extended interviews with each member of the band and he does a creditable job throughout of linking biographical information and musicological detail to the larger social historical contexts. For example, in the chapter on Whitford, he describes various local dances and other musical participatory activities, sketches the organology of the Dobro and the Hawaiian steel guitar, discusses the role of novelty acts and dialect songs, and gives a good overview of the “scene” from the perspective of a journeyman musician. Likewise, the chapter on Bollerud traces the history of the bandolina and accordion, differentiates Norwegian-American from “Norsky” styles, glosses the importance of “Polka King” Frankie Yankovic, and provides additional contextualization of regional dance styles, dialects, and joke-songs. Chapter 5 is especially interesting because it treats the Goose Island Ramblers’ performance gestalt in a localized context (Glen and Ann’s tavern), with a detailed description of what went into a typical set, including costumes, props, skits, jokes, eclectic repertoire, and novelty instruments, all performed in “a spontaneous, egalitarian, eclectic, regionally grounded house-party format” (149). This latter aspect, Leary notes, was a particularly important component of “the show” because it encouraged active audience participation in the form of vocal responses, song requests, dancing, buying beer for the band, donating props and instruments, sitting in as a performer, and other spontaneous additions.
Accompanying the book is a CD recording of material gleaned from three radio broadcasts of “Downhome Dairyland,” a Prairie Home Companion-esque program co-hosted by the author and Rick March “featur[ing] the traditional and ethnic music of Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest” (Track 55). The first program (Tracks 1-27), focusing on “Windy” Whitford, the eldest (now deceased) member of the Ramblers, and the second broadcast (Tracks 28-54), covering the entire group, are presented in their entirety. Unfortunately, the indexing for each track, while convenient for skipping through the program, introduces distracting breaks that preclude uninterrupted listening. The CD also contains excerpts from a third program that prominently features Bruce Bollerud’s “Scandihoovian” dialect singing. The recording provides full-length versions of several of the Rambler’s signature songs (some with accompanying voice-overs to provide context), samples of crowd ambiance from Glen and Ann’s, and examples of the band’s unique sense of humor.
While Leary’s book does not convincingly establish a concrete identity for “polkabilly” music, it nevertheless offers a vivid and arresting overview of the musical Upper Midwest. More specifically, it gives the reader a fully fleshed-out portrait of one possible example of “polkabilly,” the Goose Island Ramblers, a group whose hybrid, border-bending style is both a result of and a contribution to the region’s unique and eclectic culture. As such, the book is a welcome and much-needed addition to this neglected area of North American musical folklore.
[1] Mark Slobin. Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West. Hanover, NY: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.
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[Review length: 968 words • Review posted on January 12, 2009]