[78-L] Help Finding Victor Band Quadrille Record

David Sanderson dwsanderson685 at roadrunner.com
Sun Apr 3 14:31:29 PDT 2011


Apropos of some local history, I'm looking for a copy or transfer of 
Victor 35740:
		Uncle Steve's Quadrille—Part 3 With Directions and Calls   Victor Band
		The Haymakers   (1) Magnolia Reel      (2) Staten Island	  Victor Band
This is a 12" from 1923.  I've found a copy of 35739, which is parts 1 
and 2 of the quadrille, so I'm hoping for help with this one.

To explain, Steve Kimball was a fiddler and dance caller from Lovell, 
Maine, well known locally.  He was a source for Elizabeth Bourchenal, a 
1920's period folk dance scholar/teacher/advocate, who printed "Uncle 
Steve's Quadrille" in one of her books ca. 1918.  The Victor Band 
recording used her arrangement, and apparently has Billy Murray of all 
people as the caller, doesn't involve Uncle Steve or his traditional 
fiddling.  Lovell had a summer population from the cities early on, with 
the result that in 1924 someone got Uncle Steve a job as Santa Claus in 
a Manhattan department store (he cultivated a luxuriant white beard, and 
looked the part), after which he spent some time working with 
Bourchenal, then at Columbia, teaching dancing.

Then in 1927 he was the fiddler and caller for an unlikely project of 
Don Dickerman, known mostly for his later promotion of Rudy Vallee, the 
owner in the 20's of multiple supper clubs, and a great lover of the 
Kezar Lake/Lovell area.  Dickerman hired Uncle Steve and five couples 
from Lovell to perform at his County Fair, a supper club he had designed 
after the Fryeburg Fair Grounds in Maine.  They spent six weeks there, 3 
15-minute shows a night, and were something of a hit, favorably 
commented on in the New Yorker (the regular band was Eddie Worth's, a 
"rube band" ancestor of Spike Jones).

This:
http://lovell.pastperfect-online.com/31026cgi/mweb.exe?request=keyword;keyword=steve%20kimball;dtype=d
will get you photos of Uncle Steve if anyone is curious, and:
http://lovell.pastperfect-online.com/31026cgi/mweb.exe?request=keyword;keyword=don%20dickerman;dtype=d
will get you photos of Dickerman, notable also for his lifelong 
infatuation with pirates.

More information than anyone wanted....


-- 
David Sanderson
East Waterford Maine
dwsanderson685 at roadrunner.com
http://www.dwsanderson.com



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