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Whooping and Hollering to Cotton Eyed Joe

The song Cotton-Eyed Joe is one of the most popular country and western tunes ever recorded or played, and almost 500 recordings of the song have now been made.

The story of Cotton Eyed Joe is that Joe was a cowboy who had a bad habit of taking a cotton to other guys' women (in other words, he became attracted to them.) This is where the term Cotton Eyed Joe came from.

Bellaire Records was the first to record the son written by Isaac Payton Sweat and D. Howard, members of the country Sweat Band. The song is regularly song at one of the most famous country dance saloon - Gilley's in Pasadena Texas. Gilley's is referred to as a kicker bar because of the large dance floor and the number of people who come there regularly to "kick up their heels." The words to the song Cotton Eyed Joe were originally recorded in 1951, in a songbook called "Min Skal Din Skal" written for folk dancers by Grace West and Richard Lindauer.

Cotton Eyed Joe is now a dance as well as a popular song. In the Cotton Eyed Joe dance two short lines of men and women face each other around the dance floor like wheel spokes, with their hand joined behind their the backs of their neighbor in a back basket hold with the next dancer over.

Dancers who really get into the song and the dance of the lively Cotton Eyed Joe are often heard to whoop "Yah-hoo" and EE-haw" every so often. The original Cotton Eyed Joe song was recorded on two sides, with two different versions.

Source:
http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/dances/cottoney.htm

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