VINTAGE SONGS OF YOSEMITE
by Tom Bopp
For thousands of years,
the songs and dances
of human visitors
have echoed off
of Yosemite's walls.
by Tom Bopp
For thousands of years,
the songs and dances
of human visitors
have echoed off
of Yosemite's walls.
"Vintage Songs of Yosemite," a project to perform and preserve Yosemite's musical heritage, got its start in 1990, the year of Yosemite National Park's centennial, when David Forgang, then curator of the Yosemite Museum Collection, sent me a few copies of sheet music from the collection.
(1914)
The idea, originally to enhance the Park Service’s Centennial Exhibit, blossomed into my first edition of "Vintage Songs Of Yosemite" on cassette, released October 1, 1990 (one is buried in a 100 year time capsule in Yosemite Valley).
(1940)
While I wasn't entirely happy with the first version, it served an unexpected purpose: after awhile, people began digging in their piano benches and sending me more material. Also, I made the acquaintance of Harry McMillen, composer of "The Bridge By Yosemite Falls" (performed at Camp Curry dances in the late 40s), and heard from the grandson of Harry Mabry (composer of "Yosemite", pictured below), and got to know several people involved with the entertainment at Camp Curry in bygone days. Also some original recordings surfaced; thus, the recording time of "Vintage Songs" jumped from 40 to 60 minutes, and I was able to add some program notes. The recording is available in CD and cassette. One of the challenges of "Vintage Songs", as a performer, was to determine what treatment was appropriate to each song (having only the sheet music and publication dates).
(1955)
It was gratifying to hear from Harry Mabry's daughter and grandson that they'd liked my rendition of "Yosemite", though I'd perked it up a bit more than the composer would have. The grandson wrote that Mabry, born in Kentucky, raised in Oklahoma, a lawyer in Los Angeles from the 1920s until his death in 1983, "liked to write songs about places he visited...none of the songs were considered much of a commercial success, but they gave him great pleasure."
(1945)
I found Harry McMillen through a Library of Congress search--he'd renewed his copyright in 1974--and found he had a couple of interesting things in his closet. One was a box of 1948 dealer-stock of his song; the other was a 1949 amateur recording of the same song by Dick Jurgens' orchestra.
McMillen had persuaded Jurgens to allow the recording during a rehearsal in the basement of the Clairmont Hotel in Oakland. Lacking a pianist, guitarist, and perhaps others (who had not yet arrived), as well as the verse of the song (having been excluded in McMillen's arrangement) or any rehearsal, Jurgens and McMillen gave me their permission to reconstruct the record, inserting the verse and the other instruments as innocuously as possible.
This was a trick, but Mac was pleased with the results (Jurgens had a copy, but it’s uncertain whether he got around to hearing it before his death in 1995).
(1915)
"Vintage Songs" includes a 1915 78 rpm recording of Walter De Leon singing his "I'm Strong For Camp Curry", and, from the flip side, "The Stentor March," recorded in New York, featuring the "stentorian" voice of David Curry performing his trademark yells: "Hello Glacier ... all's well ... farewell."
The first call was Curry's customary greeting from the valley floor to those at Glacier Point, 3,000 feet above, preparing to rake glowing coals over the cliff in that nightly show called the Fire Fall.
Regarding the last call, a contemporary observer wrote, "As the stage drives up to take its loads away he [Curry] reads the list and calls each name, shakes hands with each departing tourist, and as the stage pulls out he shouts "Farewell" in tones that nearly blow them off their seats" [quoted from the back page of "The Stentor" sheet music].
Image printed on the 78rpm record of Glenn Hood singing "Home On The Range" and "The Strawberry Roan"
"In the Sierra I sang and
whistled [the songs of
Robert Burns] to the
squirrels and birds, and
they were charmed out of
fear and gathered close
about me."
--John Muir
Scribbled on a piece of Camp Curry stationery, dated 1915, is a note from one L.G. Nattkemper, which he had pinned to a copy of his poem "Toot Your Horn For Camp Curry". It reads "...a talented musician set this to music and it is to be sung tonight. It sure sounds catchy & dandy." The "talented musician" was Glenn Hood, who shows up on Curry concert programs as "Camp Curry's popular singer."
(1915)
(1928)
Following his 1927 description of the firefall, noted music critic Redfern Mason declared, "...what would we not have given, if a fine trombone player had sung the great motive from 'The Flying Dutchman' or if a chorus of women's voices had sung 'Lift Thine Eyes' from the 'Elijah'." Three examples of what actually did accompany the firefall are presented on "Vintage Songs", the most enduring of which was "Indian Love Call."
(1951)
I've been told by various eyewitnesses that such songs as "Pale Moon", “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”, and "When It's Twilight On The Trail" were also sung, at times, for the firefall, and suspect that there were probably many others before they settled on "Indian Love Call".
From 1949 to 1968, Ginny and Glenn Willard (a.k.a. Ginny & Keith Bee) directed the entertainment for the Yosemite Park & Curry Co. Willard's "Valley Singers", which reached 120 members at its peak, was comprised of Standard Oil, Curry, and Park Service employees. An excerpt from an early 1950s performance ("Down In The Valley") precedes one of their war-horses, "Let The Fire Fall", a tune that, according to Willard, the composers hoped would become famous.
(1910)
"Lost Arrow Trail" and "Spirit of the Evil Wind" (one of five songs from "Legends Of Yosemite In Song And Story"), included on the album, are examples of a sizable body of music, poetry, and art, inspired by once popular stereotypes of Native Americans and applied to Yosemite.
(1872)
This early Yosemite piece, "Yosemite Waltzes," came to my attention after "Vintage Songs" was completed.
"All [Yosemite] needs
is some genius,
begotten in the image of
a Wagner or a Beethoven,
to realize its possibilities
as a temple of the
god of music."
--Redfern Mason (1927)
(1874)
"Falling Waters of The Yosemite" is the second-earliest known and perhaps the most successful Yosemite piece. There have been many different printings of the sheet music, usually with Yosemite scenes on the covers (the one pictured here is the first edition), as it became a favorite with piano teachers.
(1903)
"Falling Waters" might have been surpassed in sales by the "Yosemite March & Two-Step", but, curiously, the words "As Played By Arthur Pryor and his world famous band" are covered with a stripe of metallic gold ink on the sheet music, indicating that the publishers' aspirations to fame had been thwarted.
"The Last Leaf" (Dr. Carl Sharsmith)
Detail from a watercolor by
Diane Detrick Bopp
In 1930, Carl Sharsmith was accepted into the Yosemite School of Field Natural History--locally known as the Field School--a chosen handful of the most serious students of the subject, who were also fairly serious about their campfire songs. On August 28, 1994, outside his cabin near Tuolumne Meadows, Dr. Sharsmith sang a bit of one of their songs for my camcorder; I retrieved the rest of the words to "Yosemite" from the 1936 Field School yearbook, which gives the lyricist as Carsten Ahrens.
In an interview, Dr. Sharsmith said the song "Smiles" always somehow reminded him of John Muir and Yosemite. Muir sang the songs of his favorite, Robert Burns, as he tramped through the wilderness. Ranger Ferdinand Castillo, long time friend of Dr. Sharsmith's, was fond of the tune "Twilight on the Trail", which we'd sing to each other as I'd roll by his post at Yosemite's east entrance station. In Glenn Hood's rendition of "Home On The Range", the lyric touches (with deep irony) on the recent history of Native Americans in Yosemite, and one is reminded of the far longer history of native Yosemite music yet to be compiled.
(1921)
Wherever people go, they bring their means of interpreting the mysteries they encounter. The means may be poetry, art, pop-culture, science, or music--any of the vast number of ways we see Yosemite commemorated or depicted. Thus do music, culture, and Yosemite become intertwined, producing the unique artifacts presented in "Vintage Songs Of Yosemite".
(1914)
The idea, originally to enhance the Park Service’s Centennial Exhibit, blossomed into my first edition of "Vintage Songs Of Yosemite" on cassette, released October 1, 1990 (one is buried in a 100 year time capsule in Yosemite Valley).
(1940)
While I wasn't entirely happy with the first version, it served an unexpected purpose: after awhile, people began digging in their piano benches and sending me more material. Also, I made the acquaintance of Harry McMillen, composer of "The Bridge By Yosemite Falls" (performed at Camp Curry dances in the late 40s), and heard from the grandson of Harry Mabry (composer of "Yosemite", pictured below), and got to know several people involved with the entertainment at Camp Curry in bygone days. Also some original recordings surfaced; thus, the recording time of "Vintage Songs" jumped from 40 to 60 minutes, and I was able to add some program notes. The recording is available in CD and cassette. One of the challenges of "Vintage Songs", as a performer, was to determine what treatment was appropriate to each song (having only the sheet music and publication dates).
(1955)
It was gratifying to hear from Harry Mabry's daughter and grandson that they'd liked my rendition of "Yosemite", though I'd perked it up a bit more than the composer would have. The grandson wrote that Mabry, born in Kentucky, raised in Oklahoma, a lawyer in Los Angeles from the 1920s until his death in 1983, "liked to write songs about places he visited...none of the songs were considered much of a commercial success, but they gave him great pleasure."
(1945)
I found Harry McMillen through a Library of Congress search--he'd renewed his copyright in 1974--and found he had a couple of interesting things in his closet. One was a box of 1948 dealer-stock of his song; the other was a 1949 amateur recording of the same song by Dick Jurgens' orchestra.
McMillen had persuaded Jurgens to allow the recording during a rehearsal in the basement of the Clairmont Hotel in Oakland. Lacking a pianist, guitarist, and perhaps others (who had not yet arrived), as well as the verse of the song (having been excluded in McMillen's arrangement) or any rehearsal, Jurgens and McMillen gave me their permission to reconstruct the record, inserting the verse and the other instruments as innocuously as possible.
This was a trick, but Mac was pleased with the results (Jurgens had a copy, but it’s uncertain whether he got around to hearing it before his death in 1995).
(1915)
"Vintage Songs" includes a 1915 78 rpm recording of Walter De Leon singing his "I'm Strong For Camp Curry", and, from the flip side, "The Stentor March," recorded in New York, featuring the "stentorian" voice of David Curry performing his trademark yells: "Hello Glacier ... all's well ... farewell."
The first call was Curry's customary greeting from the valley floor to those at Glacier Point, 3,000 feet above, preparing to rake glowing coals over the cliff in that nightly show called the Fire Fall.
Regarding the last call, a contemporary observer wrote, "As the stage drives up to take its loads away he [Curry] reads the list and calls each name, shakes hands with each departing tourist, and as the stage pulls out he shouts "Farewell" in tones that nearly blow them off their seats" [quoted from the back page of "The Stentor" sheet music].
Image printed on the 78rpm record of Glenn Hood singing "Home On The Range" and "The Strawberry Roan"
"In the Sierra I sang and
whistled [the songs of
Robert Burns] to the
squirrels and birds, and
they were charmed out of
fear and gathered close
about me."
--John Muir
Scribbled on a piece of Camp Curry stationery, dated 1915, is a note from one L.G. Nattkemper, which he had pinned to a copy of his poem "Toot Your Horn For Camp Curry". It reads "...a talented musician set this to music and it is to be sung tonight. It sure sounds catchy & dandy." The "talented musician" was Glenn Hood, who shows up on Curry concert programs as "Camp Curry's popular singer."
(1915)
(1928)
Following his 1927 description of the firefall, noted music critic Redfern Mason declared, "...what would we not have given, if a fine trombone player had sung the great motive from 'The Flying Dutchman' or if a chorus of women's voices had sung 'Lift Thine Eyes' from the 'Elijah'." Three examples of what actually did accompany the firefall are presented on "Vintage Songs", the most enduring of which was "Indian Love Call."
(1951)
I've been told by various eyewitnesses that such songs as "Pale Moon", “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”, and "When It's Twilight On The Trail" were also sung, at times, for the firefall, and suspect that there were probably many others before they settled on "Indian Love Call".
From 1949 to 1968, Ginny and Glenn Willard (a.k.a. Ginny & Keith Bee) directed the entertainment for the Yosemite Park & Curry Co. Willard's "Valley Singers", which reached 120 members at its peak, was comprised of Standard Oil, Curry, and Park Service employees. An excerpt from an early 1950s performance ("Down In The Valley") precedes one of their war-horses, "Let The Fire Fall", a tune that, according to Willard, the composers hoped would become famous.
(1910)
"Lost Arrow Trail" and "Spirit of the Evil Wind" (one of five songs from "Legends Of Yosemite In Song And Story"), included on the album, are examples of a sizable body of music, poetry, and art, inspired by once popular stereotypes of Native Americans and applied to Yosemite.
(1872)
This early Yosemite piece, "Yosemite Waltzes," came to my attention after "Vintage Songs" was completed.
"All [Yosemite] needs
is some genius,
begotten in the image of
a Wagner or a Beethoven,
to realize its possibilities
as a temple of the
god of music."
--Redfern Mason (1927)
(1874)
"Falling Waters of The Yosemite" is the second-earliest known and perhaps the most successful Yosemite piece. There have been many different printings of the sheet music, usually with Yosemite scenes on the covers (the one pictured here is the first edition), as it became a favorite with piano teachers.
(1903)
"Falling Waters" might have been surpassed in sales by the "Yosemite March & Two-Step", but, curiously, the words "As Played By Arthur Pryor and his world famous band" are covered with a stripe of metallic gold ink on the sheet music, indicating that the publishers' aspirations to fame had been thwarted.
"The Last Leaf" (Dr. Carl Sharsmith)
Detail from a watercolor by
Diane Detrick Bopp
In 1930, Carl Sharsmith was accepted into the Yosemite School of Field Natural History--locally known as the Field School--a chosen handful of the most serious students of the subject, who were also fairly serious about their campfire songs. On August 28, 1994, outside his cabin near Tuolumne Meadows, Dr. Sharsmith sang a bit of one of their songs for my camcorder; I retrieved the rest of the words to "Yosemite" from the 1936 Field School yearbook, which gives the lyricist as Carsten Ahrens.
In an interview, Dr. Sharsmith said the song "Smiles" always somehow reminded him of John Muir and Yosemite. Muir sang the songs of his favorite, Robert Burns, as he tramped through the wilderness. Ranger Ferdinand Castillo, long time friend of Dr. Sharsmith's, was fond of the tune "Twilight on the Trail", which we'd sing to each other as I'd roll by his post at Yosemite's east entrance station. In Glenn Hood's rendition of "Home On The Range", the lyric touches (with deep irony) on the recent history of Native Americans in Yosemite, and one is reminded of the far longer history of native Yosemite music yet to be compiled.
(1921)
Wherever people go, they bring their means of interpreting the mysteries they encounter. The means may be poetry, art, pop-culture, science, or music--any of the vast number of ways we see Yosemite commemorated or depicted. Thus do music, culture, and Yosemite become intertwined, producing the unique artifacts presented in "Vintage Songs Of Yosemite".