In tune with his calling

It was a matter of basic economics that steered a 14-year-old fiddle player to set down his bow, pick up a microphone and start calling at old-fashioned hoe down square dances.

Fiddling at a dance in Ohio 64 years ago, Earl J. Welch broke a string tuning up his instrument. Strings cost 25 cents those days.

Then he broke another string.

"Well, that was 50 cents, and we were only getting paid $3 a piece for three hours," Welch said. "So I got to thinking, the fellow who is calling for us didn't have to furnish nothing and he got his $3."

Welch laid the fiddle down.

"And I started calling ever since," he said.

He continues to call and teach dances during his summers in Ohio, and now for 11 years while wintering in Highlands County.

Welch taught a class Wednesday at the Sunshine RV Resort south of Lake Placid.

He lowered the tone arm on a 45-rpm record featuring foot-stomping, fiddling music and then commenced to call the action with a steady and rapid tempo.

"Turn that wagon wheel around, left hand in, right hand down," he called. "Turn that wagon wheel around, around and around like a merry-go-round ... going to meet your partner promenade."

With his voice hitting different notes occasionally, Welch's calling is almost like singing, and, in fact, there are some calls that are known as "singing calls."

The dance form, which is sometimes shown in brief sequences on old Western movies and television shows, has been around a long time.

"They danced it even before the Western-type square dancing came in where they wear their frilly clothes," Welch said.

Welch calls with bands or brings his records and cassettes, which he can speed up or slow down to set the right tempo.

Bands in Ohio usually included two different square dances featuring a caller, two or three round dances, which included a two-step, polka or waltz, and then two more square dances.

"We dance for three hours up there," he said. "Here, we just dance for two hours."

Welch mixes it up by also playing recordings for those who like to line dance.

What makes a good caller?

The main thing for a caller is to be clear so people can understand them, Welch said.

Songs for which he has specific calls include: "The Auctioneer," "Bully of the Town," and "Rose of San Antone."

"One of my most demanding is 'Summer Sounds,'" Welch said. "It's an awful good call with the timing and rhythm and everybody likes to dance to it and I love to call it."

For more information and for the times and dates of his dances, contact Welch at 699-2990.