Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #129 (April/May 2007).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

The Best of Hootenanny

Shaking Out the Sheets

Dirty Linen Classics

by Ronnie Lankford Jr.

Various artists
The Best of Hootenanny
Shout! Factory 826663-10221, 826663-10222, 826663-10223 (2007), DVD

"To members of the folk music community, a 'hootenanny' is a gathering of singers and musicians, all taking turns at entertaining the crowd."
Todd Everett,
The Best of Hootenanny

It's the fall of 1963, and Mr. and Ms. Folknik have just turned on the tube for their weekly fix of the hippest sound on the contemporary music scene. Yes, there may have been other variety shows -- "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre" -- but none that promised a jam-packed selection of their favorite folk personalities performing live. A commercial fades and "Hootenanny" begins:

The "Hootenanny" theme song ("we'll have a hootenanny, hootenanny"), sung by the Chad Mitchell Trio, is in process when Jack Linkletter's voiceover rings out brightly: "Join us! You're just in time for the hootenanny!" Tonight the show is being broadcast from George Sherman Union on the Boston University campus. After Linkletter introduces the 35-acre campus, the camera cuts back to the "hootenanny" in progress and pans a college auditorium filled with an enthusiastic clapping and singing body of students. After the Chad Mitchell Trio wraps up the theme song, it cuts loose on a lusty, full-throated version of "Mighty Day." The hootenanny is in full swing!

Certain things that may appear odd early in the 21st century -- women's thick, wavy hair and print dresses, men's neatly trimmed hair (above the ears) and bakelite glasses frames -- are considered the norm by Mr. and Ms. Folknik. Heck, they don't even notice that the show is in black and white, and that the audience, never mind the Cuban Missile thingamajig and Berlin Wall doohickey, exudes a carefree exuberance resembling excessive Prozac abuse. It's 1963, after all, and life -- especially if you're white, middle class, and college-bound -- is pretty darn good.

[cover #129]