RecordingPage

In September 2011, the Idaho Songs Project issued The Way We Worked in Idaho, a 56-page booklet with a CD containing 24 pre-radio era songs written by early Idaho working men and women, sung by 27 Idahoans from around the state. This project was supported by an Idaho Humanities Council grant and augmented the Smithsonian Travelling Exhibit on American labor that visited six Idaho towns in 2011 and 2012. Audio samples from the project can be found at these links:

The colorful "Poet-Prospector" of Idaho, Clarence E. Eddy (1874-1936), published four books of poems and songs between 1902 and 1923. Hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles were written by and about him coast to coast, leading to national fame in the era when burros were being replaced by autocars as the prospector's means of transportation. No American prospector left more written footprints than the Poet-Prospector, yet he is largely unknown today. The Idaho Songs Project has published four booklets/CDs based on his books with one more scheduled for release in late 2012. For details, click on

The Poet-Prospector.

During the Idaho Songs Project’s quest for songs pre-dating the radio era (1923) that relate to Idaho people, places and events, about fifty pieces of sheet music were found. These compositions range from true Idaho songs written about the songwriters’ personal experience to ridiculously romanticized songs for stage shows in London, Sydney and New York, written by people who never were within thousands of miles of Idaho. While the latter are outside the main thrust of the Idaho Songs Project, they nevertheless reveal the historic global fascination with the American West, including Idaho, and are worthy of compilation and preservation. In making archival recordings of this early sheet music, we had so much fun that we decided to share a selection with those interested in this aspect of Idaho’s musical heritage.

The booklet and 16-track CD High Tone Music of Idaho is the result. Of the fifteen songs, only “Idaho Two Step” has appeared previously in recorded form. We also decided to record the songs as vocal and piano/banjo duets. This musical format was common a hundred years ago in music parlors and concert halls all over America. With one exception, the banjo style is the three-finger five-string “classical” banjo style of that era. This sophisticated style largely disappeared as jazz arose in the 1920s. Many aspects of this banjo style anticipated the exciting bluegrass style that emerged much later and is much better known today.

Audio tracks to these songs from High Tone Music of Idahocan be heard at these links:

Route of the Great Big Baked Potato (1913)

Down Where the Lost River Flows (1917)

Idaho Waltz (1864)

Cold Springs Waltz (1901)

Idaho Two Step March (1900)

Lewiston Two Step (1902)

I Want to Go to Idaho (1908)

Little Miss Idaho of Idaho (1898)

Bona Fide issued two CDs in 2006 and was centrally involved in two other projects released in 2007. Click on the links below for more information and to hear sample audio clips.

"Songs of the

Snake River Country"

Bona Fide and Friends (January 2006)