The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2009, Page 36

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #3
In the Johanneson household, Johnny,
Kris, their sisters and brother were making
dance music. Through people like Joe
Palsson of Geysir, violin playing was a
well-established tradition in Nyja Island.
With others joining them, Johnny and Kris
moved out of their house into community
halls and their violin music became known
far and wide. In those days, my Dad was a
floor manager for the Gimli dances and so
the music of the square dances, two steps,
polkas, schottisches and the waltz quadrille
were as familiar to us as Hank Williams’
“Your Cheating Heart.” Most of Riverton
danced to Johnny’s music and enjoyed
hearing the special, last dance, “Good
Night, Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart,” a 1944
big-band song.
In Riverton, in the 50s, and for many
decades following, Johnny’s Musical Mates
were a big part of community entertain-
ment. The youngest Johanneson, Laugi,
also played the guitar and sang. He knew
all the old songs but mostly he sang coun-
try/western songs from the radio. Like
many singer/guitar players in town, he
sang at all the parties. In the early 50s, he
and Einar Jonasson (from Djupadal) cap-
tured, for weeks on end, the “King of the
Saddle” contest sponsored by a Winnipeg
radio station. Having these celebrities now
in town meant more parties with more
singer/guitar players.
Playing guitar and singing had been a
way of life in Riverton for years. Tache
Forbister’s version of “Little Ball of Yarn”
was a naughty song that showed us all how
entertaining a folk song could be. This was
pure enjoyment. At any get-together in the
50s and 60s, you could hear a variety of
songs - Icelandic, “In the Shade of the Old
Apple Tree” songs, war-time, popular
music and especially country/western like
“Hello Walls” and “Hey, Good Lookin’.”
The party-goers knew many of these songs
and joined in. The first time I sang in pub-
lic, I took my guitar to a stag in Sophie
Hurdal’s basement. The place was packed,
all enjoying several other singers playing
that night. Surprisingly, I was welcomed
into the singing community. Coming back
from university study in the United States,
I brought along songs like “Whisky in the
Jar” from the folk-music revival.
Someone should take the time to list all
the singers/players of this time. There were
plenty. The names that come to mind -
Eastman, Johnson, Renaud, Olson,
Gudmundson, Dahlman, Oleson, Wilson,
Lindstrom and, of course, Johanneson - all
have an Icelandic connection. In the early
60s, the Riverton Elks Club invited us to
put on a “hootenanny” in the Riverton
Hall. A hootenanny would just be a larger
(and more sober) version of what went on
in Sophie’s basement. We quickly found
eight of us younger singers to “raise the
rafters” in the old Hall. More surprising
was that in a town of 800 people, over 300
people from age 8 to 80 would pack the
Hall, standing room only, for an evening of
singing. We had a great time: every singer
wanting to perform his or her favourite
songs, every audience member wanting to
hear his or her favourite.
In that first of many hootenannies, we
harmonized “Good Night Irene” and
“This Land is Your Land” just to show the
folks that we knew how to sing but the
audience favourites were “Cool Water,”
“Mule Skinner Blues,” and, of course,
songs like those of Buck Owens and Roger
Miller. But a surprise hit was “Geysir
Hall,” a song that I had put together. The
song was indeed an anthem to “Johnny and
his Musical Mates.” You could hear a pin
drop in the packed Hall when I sang that
second verse:
We had an old-time band down at
Geysir
And you could hear those violins
down to Geiri’s store
Johnny’s foot kept tappin’ out the
music
It’s a tune I’ve heard a thousand times
or more.
Oh, it was music made for granny
When they played old “Ragtime
Annie”
You never heard such music at the
grandest ball
And your spine would feel a chill
When they began the waltz quadrille
And we always called a “square” at
Geysir Hall.