All Join Hands: Dudley Laufman & the New England Country Dance Tradition

"Ultimately the book is about America writ large... and the role of music in inspiring, reflecting, and recovering the ideals of various times and people. In this time of discord, Curren hits exactly the right note...Highly recommended." - Library Journal

All Join Hands is the story of what happened when a ten-thousand-year-old musical tradition was put into the hands of a seventeen-year-old Boston boy in 1947. While in high school, Dudley Laufman apprenticed with fiddlers and callers throughout New England. Eventually, he squired the old country dance traditions through to their revival in the 1960s at the Newport Folk Festival, the Club 47, and Robert J. Lurtsema's Morning Pro Musica broadcasts. Decades of performances in famous venues and small villages led to his receiving the National Heritage Fellowship Award in 2009.

As Tom Rush, iconic singer/songwriter says, "Tom Curren has done a brilliant job here, weaving an engaging narrative of how Dudley Laufman coordinated and energized the amazing resurgence of an ancient art form--the contradance/square dance -- in New England and beyond." All Join Hands calls for a new quickening of spirit, nurtured and energized by the traditional arts of New England.