File: chipmangary-oh-roughdances_M.mp3
Speakers:
GC – Gary Chipman
GC: In some cases – There was one out in a place called Harrington, which is out towards Brackley, in that area. The barn's been torn down now, what it was was just a big hay barn. And it had a hay loft in it, and a ladder, it wasn't a stairway, just a ladder going up into the loft. So you'd pull in there to take the gear in, you're always about an hour before the dance. And then nobody around, you couldn't see – The guy that owned the barn, his house was up the field. You could see the house, but there was nothing else around. Then all of a sudden, the cars started pulling in. The field would be full of cars, the people started climbing up the ladder and stuff to go in. And we'd start playing. We did play I guess, three hours a night, and through the night we'd play maybe two old time sets, and the rest would be kind of modern music they called it. So then you'd have a piano player, and maybe a guitar player, and a bass player, didn't use too many drummers in the first - In the early days. Well, the people would come in, and they'd have the canteen, and they'd all line up around the sides. There might be a couple hundred people in there if the place was big enough. And we'd just start playing at 9:30, and people would be right up right [dancing] from the start to the finish. Actually, in those days I think it was a little better, because there wasn't as many things going on as there are now, and so when a dance come up it was a big deal. Now there's a dance everywhere every night of the week and so if you don't want to go tonight you go tomorrow night,. But then if you'd wanted to go to the dance, it had to be that Saturday or you'd have to wait till next week. So there was always good crowds and people they went out. Most of the people that'd go to a dance in those days, and I guess even yet, went to enjoy themselves, listen to music and have a dance, and so that's the way it went. We'd play the whole night and people, as you said, at the end of the night they were quite a bit happier than when they came in. The odd time, there was three brothers that owned the barn, they would have to physically remove somebody from the barn and more than one was dropped down through that little loft thing there.
KP: Oh, no (laughter)
GC: They wouldn't bother with the stairway.
