Interview with bluegrass performer E. Gordon Rouse

General Note/Comment

• Two reel to reel tapes. (Copied onto C86-125/126.) Interview with bluegrass composer and performer E. Gordon Rouse (with his wife Carrie), famed as the co-author (with brother Erwin) of the Orange Blossom Special. The Rouse Brothers, originally from North Carolina, settled permanently in Florida in the 1940s. They performed as a hillbilly act, including original bluegrass songs, jokes, and stories. Rouse discusses family history; learning music; early country and bluegrass music; writing Orange Blossom Special; his performing career; working with Johnny Cash; Miami theaters; the break-up of the Rouse Brothers; and recent work. The Dade Folk Arts Survey was conducted in 1986 by folklorists Tina Bucuvalas, Nancy Nusz and Laurie Sommers in order to identify folk arts and folk artists for the special folklife area at the 34th Annual Florida Folk Festival. The traditions are mainly Haitian, Jamaican, Mexican, Bahamian, Cuban and Jewish and cover a wide range of skills and art forms.