 Skip to my LouIt all started sometime around 1987. As a composer, I had been growing increasingly dissatisfied with the rarefactions of the avant-garde, most particulaly with the abstract structural basis of my own work. Then, one evening, I was walking down the street, idly singing “Skip To My Lou,” and suddenly found myself transfixed by the tune’s blithe desperation: “Flies in the sugar bowl ... crows in the cornfield ... what’ll I do?” The resolution, “Skip to my lou, my darling,” made no sense at all, unless you were dancing, which was probably the point. It was a simple song I had sung as a child, but at the moment, it was practically a revelation. I went on to study American folk music, transcribing commercial and field recordings, mostly from the ‘20s and ‘30s, and was moved by the music’s clear and direct means, and its occasional eccentric beauties. In response, I began to write and arrange songs whose meanings and materials were popularly rooted.Dick Connette - photo by Patti Perret |
