[Dixielandjazz] Real Hokey Pokey News - not the old joke!

[David M Richoux]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/arts/music/03degen.html?_r=1&hpw

Robert Degen, Who Had a Hand in the Hokey Pokey, Dies at 104

snip:
> Popular as the song is, its authorship has long been in dispute,  
> with the credit usually going to Larry LaPrise, who as part of a  
> musical group, the Ram Trio, is said to have created it in Sun  
> Valley, Idaho, as a novelty number to entertain vacationing skiers.  
> The trio, whose other members were Charles Peter Macak and Tafft  
> Baker, recorded the song, “The Hokey Pokey,” in the late 1940s.
>
> There are many reasons to question this version of the song’s  
> provenance, however. Among them is that a very similar song, “The  
> Hokey Pokey Dance,” was copyrighted a few years earlier, in 1944, by  
> a club musician from Scranton, Pa., named Robert Degen. Mr. Degen —  
> who claimed for decades that Mr. LaPrise had stolen his song — died  
> in Lexington, Ky., on Nov. 23, his 104th birthday. (Mr. LaPrise died  
> in 1996, and the two men never met.)
>
> Mr. Degen’s death was confirmed by his son William.
>

No jokes about problems with the coffin.

Dave RIchoux