Square Dance History Project
The rich story of North American square dance finally has a home in the digital age.

Browse Items (48 total)

  • Search: Les Gotcher
Website

SDFNE 1960's Era Recordings

Jim Mayo undertook a project to use the Square Dance Foundation of New England's audio archives and locate representative samples of square dance calling from the time period when Modern Western… View item
Document

Bill Litchman - Rocky Mountain Square Dancing

This overview of square dance history focuses on two major groups of square dance. One group (northern, Eastern, Maritime, etc.) relies on quadrille-style figures, with couples interacting across the… View item
Sound

Do Paso What (clip) - Les Gotcher

sample of Les Gotcher's calling style, in this case building a dance from a break sequence Black Mountain 128 View item
Document

Les Gotcher - Square Dancin'

Published in 1950, the book contains directions to 100 dances, as well as photographs illustrating basic moves for beginners. Among those are Do-Ci-Do, Docey, Do-Sa-Do, and Do-Paso. (see the Contents… View item
Sound

Wheel and Deal (clip) - Les Gotcher

excerpt from a live recording in the early 1960s View item
Still Image

Les Gotcher - photo

Gotcher was a recipient of the Milestone award from CALLERLAB, with this biographical information. View item
Sound

Hashing the Breaks (clip) - Les Gotche

Les Gotcher was the self-proclaimed king of hash. Here's an example of his calling. Square dance enthusiasts who followed him from dance to dance in New England in the 1950s noticed, though, that… View item
Sound

Sally Goodin (clip) - Carl Myles

One wonders where the caller picked up his pronunciation of the title in this dance. Everywhere else we hear Sally GOOD-in, but here it's Sally Good-EEN. He is credited as the square dance caller in… View item
Still Image

Les Gotcher recordings

A selection of record labels and a record jacket, samples of Les Gotcher's prolific output View item
Document

CALLERLAB Milestone Recipients

The photograph shows the Milestone Award recipients in 1980 in Miami. Left to right: Charlie Baldwin, Don Armstrong, Carolyn Lasry, Jack Lasry, Ralph Page. Also receiving the award that year,… View item
Sound

Les Gotcher - hash - 1958

live recording - note the fast tempo, about 138 bpm Les Gotcher was one of the early full-time traveling callers. He was known as the "Hash Master" and this clip from a 1958 dance… View item
Sound

Ed Gilmore - Q&A, 1962 - part 1

This is a discussion with noted California caller Ed Gilmore, recorded October 21, 1962, at a meeting of the Tri-State Callers Association, an organization of professional MWSD callers from Maine, New… View item