May 2023 MBR The Dance Shelf

The Dance Shelf

All Join Hands
Thomas S. Curren
Peter E. Randall Publisher
www.perpublisher.com
9781942155553, $25.00, PB, 202pp

https://www.amazon.com/All-Join-Hands-Thomas-Curren/dp/1942155557

Synopsis: "All Join Hands: Dudley Laufman & the New England Country Dance Tradition" by Thomas S. Curren is the story of what happened when a ten-thousand-year-old musical tradition was put into the hands of a seventeen-year-old Boston boy in 1947.

While in high school, Dudley Laufman apprenticed with fiddlers and callers throughout New England. Eventually, he squired the old country dance traditions through to their revival in the 1960s at the Newport Folk Festival, the Club 47, and Robert J. Lurtsema's Morning Pro Musica broadcasts. Decades of performances in famous venues and small villages led to his receiving the National Heritage Fellowship Award in 2009.

Critique: Of special interest to readers with respect to the history of American folk music and country dance, "All Join Hands: Dudley Laufman & the New England Country Dance Tradition" is as inherently fascinating a read as it is informed and informative. Enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of a section of black/white historical photos, "All Join Hands" is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library New England Biography, Folk & Music, and Country Dance History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Tom Curren (https://perpublisher.com/portfolio-item/all-join-hands) is a writer, farmer, conservationist, and an historian who lives in New Hampshire with his wife, folklorist Kathy Neustadt. Since the 1970s, Tom has had an extensive career writing and speaking about New England culture, life and landscape. He has written four local town histories as well as the statewide account of Old Home Day. He gives presentations at local historical societies and similar gatherings throughout the region.

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