[Callers] A Hand to the Band!

The following is from David Millstone, who is not a list member, but asked me to share it. David Smukler Syracuse, NY ---- I'm happy to announce the release of A Hand to the Band! [see url at the end of this message], a celebration of dance musicians over the last half century. This project, centered on an interactive map, looks at groups who played for square dances or contra dances, who were among the early such musicians in a given community, and who made a recording. For each band, you'll find information about the musicians and instruments, the release date of their first album (cassette, LP, or CD), the cover image, an instrumental track from that album, and comments about the band, usually from one of the group's members. At the moment, there are more than 275 groups represented in the collection. When you first open the site, the map displays all of the bands. However, you can also narrow your focus by geography and by chronology, so if you're interested in bands from the upper Midwest who recorded between 1980 and 1985, that's easy to arrange. There's also a robust search engine that lets you look for particular musicians or bands. The technical wizardry that makes this possible was provided by Andrew Frock, a young programmer who grew up in the dance world. Without his expertise, all of the information I gathered would be sitting on my desktop computer. He was a fantastic collaborator, and he is sharing the tech underpinnings of the site via GitHub. I started this project from a New England perspective, thinking I knew all the early New England bands. (Surprise! I didn't.) Naively (and arrogantly) I thought there might be a handful of bands elsewhere around the country who had also recorded early on. (Surprise! There were far more than a handful.) In short, compiling the information for this project gave me a deep appreciation for the many musicians around the country who lifted dancers' feet over the decades. From the beginning, I was interested in musicians playing for square dances and for contra dances. When I started dancing, in the early 1970s, both forms would turn up on an evening's program, and I continue to enjoy both styles of country dance. This eclectic approach in this project means that there is a wide variety of musical styles represented here, tunes from northern New England as well as southern Appalachia. Enough! Enjoy the site and please tell others about it. Let us know [using the email ContraSquareMap at gmail dot com] if we need to make corrections or additions. David Millstone https://ahandfortheband.org/ davidmillstone7(a)gmail.com