Bob Livingston wrote:
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Many thanks, Bob, for mentioning the Cummington Fair! I recently searched for local fairs that featured square dancing, and the only one I found was Heath (Aug. 19-21), which has its dance on the Friday. We decided against taking time off
our day jobs to drive 2+ hours on a Friday night. Somehow I overlooked Cummington (Aug. 25-28), where the dance is on the Saturday. We happen to be free that night, so we’ll likely go.
Everyone: The dances at both fairs are by the Falltown String Band with Doug Wilkins calling. The Square Dance History Proect (www.squaredancehistory.org) has several video clips of this band
with Bob Livingston calling, recorded in Chesterfield, CT in 2013.
<<In CT/RI fiddler Tom Hall does a neat "doodle dee do" during the quiet part... But there is no quiet part on the Square Dance History recording. And there is no
slow part; with the complete stops that come after each line during the arm turns...at the caller's discretion. "I'm not going too fast for anybody am I??" ...followed by double time for the dosadoes and promenades. Caller Ted Glabach in Southern VT was great
with it.>>
I don’t think I’ve ever danced The Slow One, though I’ve heard a lot about it. Jon Lurie, who got me started as a caller at the Farm & Wilderness Camps, used to threaten to call it, whereupon one or two people who knew it shouted “No! No!
Anything but that!” I think it was Jon who sang it to me offstage, with fast and slow parts alternating.
Curiously, although Jon learned many of his calls from David Park Williams, there is no fast part on the recording that Dave made of The Slow One. (Several of Dave’s dances are at the History Project, but apparently not The Slow One.)
The only place I’ve seen it in print is in a folio by Allemande Al Mueller (of upstate New York), published around 1940 I think. It’s called something like “To the Corner with Your Right,” and there’s no indication of a change in tempo.
The tune is similar but not identical to Solomon Levi.
Tony Parkes
Billerica, Mass.