Jimmy Clossin - card, biography, flyer, letter, news story
Jimmy Clossin was an influential Texas caller who unfortunately never recorded commercially. (This Square Dance History Site would dearly love to post clips from live recordings—please contact us if you know of any.) Shown here are several items:
• his business card
• a letter in which he outlines his terms to call for a club
• a 1950 flier announcing an evening of squares
• promotional biography
• photograph and brief text about a 1952 dance event in Birmingham, Alabama
• square dance magazine story and photographs (1957) describing his work with school children in Florida
He was co-author (with Carl Hertzog) of West Texas Cowboy Square Dances (1948) and The American Cowboy Square Dance Book (1952). He received the CALLERLAB Milestone award in 1976.
Bill Litchman: Most people seem to think that Jimmy Clossin was born in Texas and lived his life on the range, herding cattle and occasionally calling dances at remote ranches. In 1920, he was a teamster in the oil fields (living in El Paso), in 1930, he was a carpenter (still in El Paso), and in 1940, in recreation for the WPA (in El Paso). He had a brother and two sisters
He was born 2 Feb 1899 in Oklahoma, to William and Dura Edith Clossin, and died in Edgewood, Duval, Florida, 1 Jan 1986. He was married at least twice (divorced from his first wife). His second wife was Elizabeth (b 28 Nov 1897 and d 1 Feb 1986). They lived together from marriage until his death. She died one month later.
I know of no recordings by Jimmy Clossin (either dance or conversation), at least none come easily to mind. I know that many people have been looking for recordings by him but I don't think they've been successful. I don't remember seeing any recordings in the LSF Archives collection (which was vast).
I spoke to him on the phone when I was attempting to get him to donate his dance collection to the Archives but I didn't record the conversation (drat the luck). He did donate stuff to the Archives and that is now at DU. His calling career was rather early (beginning in the 1920s) so that he may have predated easily available tape recorders. Few people had wire recorders though I had one in the Archives with several reels of wire recordings. I don't think that Jimmy was on any of them but I can't be really sure. We had a very large collection of privately made taped dances and these were never cataloged (by me) so they went to DU without any documentation. It would be a huge task to try to identify all of those tapes. Most were donated without any comment.
Jimmy is one of those very well-known callers with little in the way of permanent "library" material. We're lucky to have his book. That is probably true for most of the early western callers.
Subjects: Transitional/Western 1950s
Tags: children, cowboy, Florida, Jimmy Clossin, Texas
Item Relations
| This Item | is related to | Item: Jimmy Clossin - photos at Camp Ihduhapi |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Jimmy Clossin, producer - square dance instrumental music |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Jimmy Clossin - record album |
| This Item | is related to | Item: West Texans Do It Differently |
| This Item | is related to | Item: American Squares Summer School, 1 |
| This Item | is related to | Item: A Square Dance Pioneer: Jimmy Clossin |
| Item: Jimmy Clossin - personal scrapbook | is related to | This Item |
Additional Files
Citation
Dublin Core
Title
Subject
Description
• his business card
• a letter in which he outlines his terms to call for a club
• a 1950 flier announcing an evening of squares
• promotional biography
• photograph and brief text about a 1952 dance event in Birmingham, Alabama
• square dance magazine story and photographs (1957) describing his work with school children in Florida
He was co-author (with Carl Hertzog) of West Texas Cowboy Square Dances (1948) and The American Cowboy Square Dance Book (1952). He received the CALLERLAB Milestone award in 1976.
Bill Litchman: Most people seem to think that Jimmy Clossin was born in Texas and lived his life on the range, herding cattle and occasionally calling dances at remote ranches. In 1920, he was a teamster in the oil fields (living in El Paso), in 1930, he was a carpenter (still in El Paso), and in 1940, in recreation for the WPA (in El Paso). He had a brother and two sisters
He was born 2 Feb 1899 in Oklahoma, to William and Dura Edith Clossin, and died in Edgewood, Duval, Florida, 1 Jan 1986. He was married at least twice (divorced from his first wife). His second wife was Elizabeth (b 28 Nov 1897 and d 1 Feb 1986). They lived together from marriage until his death. She died one month later.
I know of no recordings by Jimmy Clossin (either dance or conversation), at least none come easily to mind. I know that many people have been looking for recordings by him but I don't think they've been successful. I don't remember seeing any recordings in the LSF Archives collection (which was vast).
I spoke to him on the phone when I was attempting to get him to donate his dance collection to the Archives but I didn't record the conversation (drat the luck). He did donate stuff to the Archives and that is now at DU. His calling career was rather early (beginning in the 1920s) so that he may have predated easily available tape recorders. Few people had wire recorders though I had one in the Archives with several reels of wire recordings. I don't think that Jimmy was on any of them but I can't be really sure. We had a very large collection of privately made taped dances and these were never cataloged (by me) so they went to DU without any documentation. It would be a huge task to try to identify all of those tapes. Most were donated without any comment.
Jimmy is one of those very well-known callers with little in the way of permanent "library" material. We're lucky to have his book. That is probably true for most of the early western callers.
Source
• his business card
• a letter in which he outlines his terms to call for a club
• a 1950 flier announcing an evening of squares
• promotional biography
• photograph and brief text about a 1952 dance event in Birmingham, Alabama
• square dance magazine story and photographs (1957) describing his work with school children in Florida
He was co-author (with Carl Hertzog) of West Texas Cowboy Square Dances (1948) and The American Cowboy Square Dance Book (1952). He received the CALLERLAB Milestone award in 1976.
Bill Litchman: Most people seem to think that Jimmy Clossin was born in Texas and lived his life on the range, herding cattle and occasionally calling dances at remote ranches. In 1920, he was a teamster in the oil fields (living in El Paso), in 1930, he was a carpenter (still in El Paso), and in 1940, in recreation for the WPA (in El Paso). He had a brother and two sisters
He was born 2 Feb 1899 in Oklahoma, to William and Dura Edith Clossin, and died in Edgewood, Duval, Florida, 1 Jan 1986. He was married at least twice (divorced from his first wife). His second wife was Elizabeth (b 28 Nov 1897 and d 1 Feb 1986). They lived together from marriage until his death. She died one month later.
I know of no recordings by Jimmy Clossin (either dance or conversation), at least none come easily to mind. I know that many people have been looking for recordings by him but I don't think they've been successful. I don't remember seeing any recordings in the LSF Archives collection (which was vast).
I spoke to him on the phone when I was attempting to get him to donate his dance collection to the Archives but I didn't record the conversation (drat the luck). He did donate stuff to the Archives and that is now at DU. His calling career was rather early (beginning in the 1920s) so that he may have predated easily available tape recorders. Few people had wire recorders though I had one in the Archives with several reels of wire recordings. I don't think that Jimmy was on any of them but I can't be really sure. We had a very large collection of privately made taped dances and these were never cataloged (by me) so they went to DU without any documentation. It would be a huge task to try to identify all of those tapes. Most were donated without any comment.
Jimmy is one of those very well-known callers with little in the way of permanent "library" material. We're lucky to have his book. That is probably true for most of the early western callers.