The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #55400 Message #862139
Posted By: GUEST,Q
08-Jan-03 - 08:41 PM
Thread Name: Hootenanny-another definition
Subject: RE: BS: Hootenanny-another definition
Johnross, thanks for the post. The folksingers sort of hijacked the word for their doin's. Terry Pettus' remembrance of a "party that just seemed to happen" forms the basis of the definition of the event that I remember, except that the initial impetus usually came from a few well-oiled couples at the local watering hole, one saying the weather is good, lets hootnanny, and some luckless friend with a good barn or storehouse or flat open area was picked to hold the affair. Generally he was woke up well after midnight and plied with liquor, until he nodded his head.
Some say that the term originated with Hoot and Annie Gibson in their early Hollywood days- could be true, certainly a lot of people in the movie industry showed up at Hoot 'n' Annies for the parties. Whether this meaning of the word spread generally, I don't know, but that pair were well-known all through the west.
There is a good song, fairly new I think, by Maggie Brandon, that fits.
Hootenanny
Way cross town just inside the state line
There's a place they like to party while they drink their moonshine
A stone throw from the river cross the marsh out on the dock
A bucket and a harp and they know how to make it rock.
Lawd dawggy we're goin' to a hootnanny
Get up get down turn around and shake your fanny
Five girls to every guy so come along and up the ante
Lawd dawggy we're goin' to a hootenanny. And so forth...