Click to go to Slim Chance Home

Click to go to Idaho Songs Project

 

Recordings and Books

Click to purchase via Paypal

 

SONGS, STORIES AND POEMS OF THE WETZEL COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA AREA

This project consists of an 80-page interpretive booklet and audio CD with 22 songs, stories and poems of the Wetzel County, West Virginia region. The booklet provides background and lyrics for each track, plus a brief history of the Wetzel region. The events that are addressed range from the boyhood days (1770s) of legendary Indian fighter Lewis Wetzel to a song written by Pansy Yoho (Price), who has been writing and singing songs in Wetzel County for over 70 years. The audio tracks were performed by Gary Eller and friends from Idaho and Utah; Wetzel County region musicians Terry Sands, Ron Hoskinson, Gay Schwing (deceased) and Pansy Yoho; and Fairmont'sLeigh Ann Hood.

$15 plus shipping

Click to hear the first track on this project:

Ballad of Lewis Wetzel

 

POEMS OF IDAHO

This project consists of a 110-page booklet and audio CD based on 26 poems and songs published by Hannibal F. "Seven Devils" Johnson in Weiser, Idaho in 1895. The booklet also give a brief history of the dramatic Seven Devils Mountains/Hells Canyon are of southwest Idaho. The booklet also describes the remarkable life stories of Hannibal and his brother Pleasant.

$15 plus shipping

Click to hear the first track on this project:

Trip to Rapid River

 

BALLADS OF THE OWYHEE COUNTRY

This project consists of a 50-page interpretive booklet and audio CD with 22 songs performed by regional musicians. The songs are based on the historical people, places and events of southwest Idaho's dramatic Owyhee Mountains.

$15 plus shipping

Also available from the Owyhee County Historical Society and Museum.

Click to hear the first track on this project:

Sagebrush Annie Line

 

In September 2011, the Idaho Songs Project issued The Way We Worked in Idaho, a 56-page booklet with a CD containing 24 pre-radio era songs written by early Idaho working men and women, sung by 27 Idahoans from around the state. This project was supported by an Idaho Humanities Council grant and augmented the Smithsonian Travelling Exhibit on American labor that visited six Idaho towns in 2011 and 2012. Audio samples from the project can be found at these links:

50,000 Lumberjacks variant

Teton Ditchdigger Song

Seven Devils Mines

Otto Hussa Ditty

Pal Pinto and Idaho

The Constabule

 

The colorful "Poet-Prospector" of Idaho, Clarence E. Eddy (1874-1936), published four books of poems and songs between 1902 and 1923. Hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles were written by and about him coast to coast, leading to national fame in the era when burros were being replaced by autocars as the prospector's means of transportation. No American prospector left more written footprints than the Poet-Prospector, yet he is largely unknown today. The Idaho Songs Project has published four booklets/CDs based on his books with one more scheduled for release in late 2012. For details, click on

The Poet-Prospector.

 

During the Idaho Songs Project’s quest for songs pre-dating the radio era (1923) that relate to Idaho people, places and events, about fifty pieces of sheet music were found. These compositions range from true Idaho songs written about the songwriters’ personal experience to ridiculously romanticized songs for stage shows in London, Sydney and New York, written by people who never were within thousands of miles of Idaho. While the latter are outside the main thrust of the Idaho Songs Project, they nevertheless reveal the historic global fascination with the American West, including Idaho, and are worthy of compilation and preservation. In making archival recordings of this early sheet music, we had so much fun that we decided to share a selection with those interested in this aspect of Idaho’s musical heritage.

The booklet and 16-track CD High Tone Music of Idaho is the result. Of the fifteen songs, only “Idaho Two Step” has appeared previously in recorded form. We also decided to record the songs as vocal and piano/banjo duets. This musical format was common a hundred years ago in music parlors and concert halls all over America. With one exception, the banjo style is the three-finger five-string “classical” banjo style of that era. This sophisticated style largely disappeared as jazz arose in the 1920s. Many aspects of this banjo style anticipated the exciting bluegrass style that emerged much later and is much better known today.

Audio tracks to these songs from High Tone Music of Idahocan be heard at these links:

Route of the Great Big Baked Potato (1913)

Down Where the Lost River Flows (1917)

Idaho Waltz (1864)

Cold Springs Waltz (1901)

Idaho Two Step March (1900)

Lewiston Two Step (1902)

I Want to Go to Idaho (1908)

Little Miss Idaho of Idaho (1898)

 

 

In December 2009, the Idaho Humanities Council issued The Idaho Songbag, a 27-track CD accompaniedby a 70-page interpretive booklet. This project was the culmination of a two-year collaboration between IHC and the Idaho Songs Project. For a description of the project and audio tracks, click on this link:

The Idaho Songbag

IdahoSongbagThumbnail

 

In December 2008, Gary Eller and John Larsen published a 75-page book and accompanying CD based on 17 pre-radio era songs related to southern Idaho and the emigrant trails crossing that region. For more information, click on:

Early Songs of Southern Idaho and the Emigrant Trails

 

In May 2009, Gary Eller and Rue Frisbee issued a CD with 29 fiddle tunes played by beloved Idaho old time fiddler Otis Howard, who came to Idaho by covered wagon in 1899. This is by far the largest collection of true Idaho old time fiddling available. Otis was accompanied by Dave Frisbee, who was a noted Idaho fiddler in his own right. For details, click on this link:

Idaho Old Time Fiddling

by Otis Howard and Dave Frisbee

 

In August 2009, Gary Eller issued a CD with 14 songs from the 1840s to 1920s about people, places and events of his home of origin in northern West Virginia. For details, click on this link:

Early Songs of Northern West Virginia and the Upper Ohio Valley

No longer available. Contact Gary Eller for details.

 

 

 

Bona Fide issued two CDs in 2006 and was centrally involved in two other projects released in 2007. Click on the links below for more information and to hear sample audio clips.

 

SRCDLabel

"Songs of the

Snake River Country"

Bona Fide and Friends (January 2006)

CD Gary Eller with Bona Fide and Friends (December 2006). For details click on:

Appalachian Sons

No longer available.

 

   
OwyheeCDLabelResized

Ballads of the Owyhee Country

CD and illustrated booklet released in April 2007 by the Owyhee County Historical Society. Bona Fide contributed to seven tracks.

 

No longer available.

Bona Fide -

Live at the Old Idaho Pen

Three-track mini CD recorded live at the old Idaho Territorial Penitentiary in October 2006 by Bona Fide and Friends.

No longer available.

OldPenCDLabel

 

This page was last revised on May 14, 2013. Copyright Idaho Songs Project.