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Appalachian Clogging Dance

I've been thinking how we used to dance...with our feet. Some examples of clogging below:

This woman calls it Appalachian Flatfooting...I'll forgive her, she's from the UK, but yeah, she's pretty good at it:

This gentleman sprinkles cornmeal on his board. Dancehalls would sprinkle cornmeal too, so we could slide better:

This is from 1964. This is how I learned to dance with boys. We danced like this in school for gym class, too....it was fun! My family has a big reunion every year, for I guess you could call my Clan...it's interesting to see such a large example of my gene pool....we're a slender bunch and many redheads. 70 years running, our reunion. After dinner, we dance the night away, like this:
Mountain Clog Dancing:
 

Zzartemis​

I once had a girlfriend who could clog and she liked to play bingo too. As kids in school we would nail bottle caps on our boots (nobody knew what Oxfords were). The floors in the school pretty soon got all scuffed up and they outlawed the practice.

Boys started attaching metal taps from tap shoes onto their own oxfords, but as the trend grew, other things like bottle caps, pieces of metal, and even pony-size horseshoes were nailed onto the sole of the shoe to produce the clacking sound.

Metal taps for shoes: Old Memories

www.skooldays.com
Click to expand...
 
@pinkfreud I like Rising Appalachia, and their videos, very much:

@dennis Hee hee...thanks for the memory....I remember just steppin' on bottle caps, so they'd embed in our sneakers. And YES [!] I love the banjo. It is one of the reasons I like Mean Mary so much....plus she writes beautiful music and fabulous lyrics. Her life is interesting, how she was raised and playin' music with her brother, since children...their father built a logcabin for the family to live in. She started out country western when small but changed to a more Americana type style. This one on the railroad is a good example of her talent in all departments of music...(btw her horse, Apache, who was in many videos with her died last year...beautiful tribute to him at her channel titled, "Wild Dreams.")

Mean Mary: "Iron Horse":

Mean Mary with brother Frank James (yes, that's his iconic name...🤠): "Blazing":
 

The Killers - All These Things That I've Done​



When there's nowhere else to run
Is there room for one more son
One more son
If you can hold on
If you can hold on, hold on
I want to stand up, I want to let go
You know, you know - no you don't, you don't
I want to shine on in the hearts of men
I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand

Another head aches, another heart breaks
I am so much older than I can take
And my affection, well it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no no no no

Help me out
Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
You know you got to help me out

And when there's nowhere else to run
Is there room for one more son
These changes ain't changing me
The cold-hearted boy I used to be

Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
You know you got to help me out
You're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down

I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier

Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
You know you got to help me out
You're gonna bring yourself down
You're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down

Over and again, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done
All these things that I've done
(Time, truth, hearts)
If you can hold on
If you can hold on
 
A collection of musical pieces showing the characteristic and somewhat solemn style of Puccini.

 
As soon as the opening riff kicked in, I just knew this was going to be a good listen. Richie Blackmore is a strange soul. Very talented, but mercurial and perhaps a little selfish. He's a terrific guitarist, and on this song the whole band is on great form. Taken from the 1974 era of Deep Purple. One of my favourite bands.

 
New tune from two great Polish artists - Sanah and Daria Zawiałow.


I also recommend to check out other Sanah songs, only in Polish :) It's interesting cause she's mixing modern music with live instruments like violin and language used by modern teenagers with old-fashioned expressions.

My personal favourites:
 
As I can see most of the last added things are classic. I would also like to share something in these climates. From my recent musical discoveries that I really didn't realize is Weinberg. This is really good, at least in my opinion.

 
"Le Chant des Partisans" was the anthem of the French Resistance during the Second World War. The music was composed in 1941 in London by the singer Anna Marly, on a Russian text, her native language. The original French lyrics were written by Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon in May 1943. The whistled song became the theme music for the BBC's "Honneur et Patrie" programme and a sign of recognition in the maquis.

 
Zzartemis said:
Appalachian Clogging Dance

I've been thinking how we used to dance...with our feet. Some examples of clogging below:

[...]
Click to expand...

This video of a cool little jig was posted the other day on an Irish traditional music channel. I would guess it's partly where the Appalachian flatfooting comes from:

According to this website:
It doesn’t come as much surprise that clogging has roots in Ireland, Scotland, and England. In the fifth century, Irish pagans created a type of step dancing called a “soft jig”. By the mid-18th century, as a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution in Northern England, another type of stepdancing formed called the “Lancashire Clog”. As Europeans began to immigrate, these forms of clogging made their way to America. Many Irish and Scotts-Irish immigrants settled in Appalachia (“Historic Timeline”). High Mountains, Flatfeet: The History of Clogging in Appalachia
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I spent quite a bit of time in Lancashire and don't think i ever saw a performance of this kind of flatfoot/clog dancing, Morris dancing, yes, but not clogging. I think it's a sign of how little traditional culture has managed to survive in much the UK.
 
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