Hootenanny is also an old country word for "party" or get-together. It can refer to a
folk music party with an
open mic, at which different performers are welcome to get up and play in front of an audience.
According to
Pete Seeger he first heard the word hootenanny in
Seattle, Washington in the summer of 1941 while touring the area with Woody Guthrie.[1] It was used by
Hugh DeLacy'sNew Deal political club[2] to describe their monthly music fund raisers.[3] After some debate the club voted in hootenanny, which narrowly beat out wingding. Seeger,
Woody Guthrie and other members of the
Almanac Singers later used the word in New York City to describe their weekly
rent parties, which featured many notable folksingers of the time.[3] In a 1962 interview in Time,
Joan Baez made the analogy that a hootenanny is to folk singing what a
jam session is to jazz.[4]
Events
During the early 1960s at the height of the
American folk music revival, the club
Gerdes Folk City at 11 West 4th Street in
Greenwich Village started the folk music hootenanny tradition every Monday night, that featured an open mic and welcomed performers known and unknown, young and old.[5]The Bitter End at 147 Bleecker Street continued the folk music hootenanny tradition every Tuesday night.[6][7]
A weekly hootenanny has been held during the summers at
Allegany State Park most years since 1972.[8]
The Hootenanny was an annual one-day
rockabilly music festival held at the Oak Canyon Ranch in Irvine, California, which also incorporated a vintage car show, and was discontinued in 2015.[citation needed]
For years there have been online hootenannies. The most long-standing example is
Small Talk At The Wall,[9] which originated in 1999.
Recordings
Hootenanny with the Highwaymen is a 1963 album by folk band
The Highwaymen
In 1963 and 1964, a
BBC 1 show The Hoot'nanny Show, recorded in
Edinburgh, was broadcast.[13] Two albums with the same title were released, with contributions from
Archie Fisher, Barney McKenna (before he joined
The Dubliners), and
The Corries.