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Polkabilly Ramblers Redefined American Musicspheres

A freewheeling blend of continental European folk music and the songs, tunes, and dances of Anglo and Celtic immigrants, polkabilly has enthralled American musicians and dancers since the mid-19th century. From West Virginia coal camps and east Texas farms to the Canadian prairies and America’s Upper Midwest, scores of groups have wed squeezeboxes with string bands, hoe downs with hambos, and sentimental Southern balladry with comic “up north” broken-English comedy, to manufacture a new and unambiguously American sound.
The Goose Island Ramblers played as a house band for a local tavern in Madison, Wisconsin from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. The group epitomized the polkabilly sound with their wild mixture of Norwegian fiddle tunes, Irish jigs, Slovenian polkas, Swiss yodels, old time hillbilly songs, “Scandihoovian” and “Dutchman” dialect ditties, frost-bitten Hawaiian marches, and novelty numbers on the electric toilet plunger. In this introductory study, James P. Leary illustrates how the Ramblers’ multiethnic music combined both local and ordinary traditions, and how their eclectic repertoire challenges prevailing definitions of American folk music. He therefore offers the introductory comprehensive examination of the Upper Midwest’s folk musical traditions within the more spectacular context of American life and culture.
Impeccably researched, richly elaborate and illustrated, and accompanied by a compact disc of consultations and performances, James P. Leary’s Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music produces an unforgettable portrait of a polkabilly band and it is world.

Review
“Polkabilly offers an agreeably diverting and enlightening look at the music of a region that’s been little explored as well as an endearingly agreeably diverting band.”–Jeffery R. Lindholm, Dirty Linen

“I have learnt much more from Leary with regards to the Upper Midwest’s vernacular music than I have from the some books and articles I have read on Dylan.”–Michael Pickering, Folk Music Journal

“It’s an intriguing title, and Leary makes a cogent case for a hybrid music of the Upper Midwest, a mix of American, English, German, Scandinavian and country music that’s invented over the last century or moreAt the very least it’s an interesting tale that gathers various strands of American and immigrant history. As a history of upper Midwestern fold music, this makes a very interesting and informative read.” –Sing Out!

“This is a well-researched look at an overlooked form of American folk music.”–Anything Phonographic

“Jim Leary has written a rich masterwork with regards to people and music, cultural processes, and significances in a part of America long misunderstood or ignored. His treatment of the Goose Island Ramblers is as engaging as their personalities and the music they play from neighborhood bars to country fairs …Full of the humor of the real folks from places specified too many times by stereotypes, Polkabilly is a fine personal and musical history.”–Nick Spitzer, Professor of Folklore, University of New Orleans, and Host, American Routes, Public Radio International

“Jim Leary has formulated a rich, scholarly, and lively account of the making of the little known folk music of the Upper Midwest. He has thence at last raised that style from it is local base to it is proper place alongside the more familiar, nationally known musics, such as jazz, country, zydeco and others. Leary shows how this territorial style is distinguishable in it is blending of resident ethnic cultures, from groups originating from the Baltic to the Balkans. The result is in truth Polkabilly, and it is promoters, the Goose Island Ramblers.”–Victor Greene, Emeritus Professor of Ethnic History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

“This is an impressive and convincing piece of scholarship! Those who read it will come away with not only a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the vernacular music of the Upper Midwest, but likewise a broader perspective of what American rural music in truth is. Jim Leary reminds us, too, that the infectious polkabilly music of the Goose Island Ramblers is both a tribute to American pluralism and a testimony of the marvelous ways in which our working people have sustained their lives and identities.”–Bill C. Malone, Professor Emeritus of History, Tulane University

“Polkabilly is one of the most necessary books on American music in recent years. It is meticulously documented and tells an necessary story, not just with regards to the Goose Island Ramblers, but dozens of other polkabilly musicians of the Upper Midwest.” –Journal of American Folklore

“As much as I enjoyed this book for my nostalgic romp through the intimate and exotic Wisconsin locales of Lodi, Oulu, Rice Lake and Boscobel, I enjoyed it even more for it is informative account of the roots and context of the Goose Island Ramblers, for it is enthusiasti argument for a re-evaluation of Midwestern U.S. musical culture, and for it is perceptivities into the each and everyday musical life of the region…Meticulously researched.” –Gage Averill, Yearbook for Traditional Music

About the Author
James P. Leary is a professor of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he likewise serves as conductor of the Folklore Program and co-director of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures. A native of northern Wisconsin, he has conducted field exploration on the folklore of diverse cultural groups in America’s Upper Midwest for more than thirty years and is author of Minnesota Polka, Yodeling in Dairyland, Wisconsin Folklore, and So Ole Says to Lena: Folk Humor of the Upper Midwest.

Polkabilly Ramblers Redefined American Musicspheres Photo

Polkabilly Ramblers Redefined American Musicspheres Picture

Polkabilly Ramblers Redefined American Musicspheres Pic

Polkabilly Ramblers Redefined American Musicspheres Photo

Most helpful client reviews

1 of 1 humans found the following review helpful.
If you’re mesmerized in territorial music, get this.
By D. V. Beck
This is a arousing and attention holding account of the little known territorial music of the upper-Midwest. The Ramblers are the focus here, but this is actually an in-depth study of the scene that devised them, from Slim Jim to Bob Andresen’s “Jack Pine” guitar, and beyond. The Goose Island Ramblers were one of a kind, combining (seemingly) effortless mastery of multiple instruments, musical styles from around the world (Scandinavia, Russia, Germany, Poland, etc.) and the U.S. (folk, country, Hawaiian, western swing), and a great repertoire of songs intimate and obscure. The only reason this gets 4 stars rather of 5 is Leary’s tendency towards academic jargon (terms like “syncretic”). Not incisively my cup of tea, but it in truth doesn’t interfere too much with the pleasure the story. If you’ve never heard the Ramblers, you need to check them out. Almost all of their recordings (with the exception of the exceedingly rare “Syttende Mai in Stoughton”) are still available from the Cuca Records (their original label) website. While you’re there, check out the other great releases. Cuca Records founder James Kirchstein (who still runs the site) amassed an amazing, beautifully recorded chronicle of the territorial music of the upper-Midwest (folk, country western, ethnic, garage rock – even circus music) in the 60s and 70s.

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