No Time For Fry Bread: A Song History

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"No Time For Fry Bread" sits seventh among the fourteen tunes in DulciFlute 2, a book of duets for mountain dulcimer and Native American flute by John Keane and Karen Keane, published by Fingers Of Steel.[1] Its product listing calls the collection original music written for the two instruments together, and the download comes with MP3 recordings, 28 tracks in all.[1] Because the listing credits no piece individually, it does not say which of the Keanes wrote this one, or whether they wrote it together.[1] The pair, from Shreveport, Louisiana, earned music education degrees at Northeast Louisiana University, now the University of Louisiana-Monroe, and have produced several books and CDs of their own music for dulcimer and flute.[2][3]

Painting of a woman in a dim kitchen holding a pan over a fire while a small child sits on the floor watching

Jozef Israëls, The Pancakes, oil on fabric, c. 1875. Pancakes rather than fry bread, shown for the frying pan; it has no connection to the tune.

In Oklahoma, fry bread became a favorite at powwows, fairs and festivals during the twentieth century.[4] The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture reports the view of many historians that the bread took shape in the mid- to late 1800s among American Indians, mostly of the Southwest, whom the U.S. government was then moving and confining, and who had to make do with Army rations, white wheat flour among them.[4] For the Navajo, Smithsonian Magazine places its beginning in the Long Walk, the forced relocation from Arizona to New Mexico, after which the government supplied flour, sugar and lard to keep people from starving.[5] The article cites rock musician Keith Secola and Sherman Alexie, who say the food "represents both perseverance and pain."[5] The sources consulted here do not say whether the tune's title has anything to do with that history.[1][2][3]

Our book that contains the song "No Time For Fry Bread"

Sources

  1. Fingers Of Steel: "John Keane And Karen Keane, DulciFlute 2".
  2. DulcimerDownloads: "John Keane".
  3. DulcimerDownloads: "Karen Keane".
  4. Oklahoma Historical Society, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture: "Fry Bread".
  5. Smithsonian Magazine: "Frybread".
  6. Image: Jozef Israëls, The Pancakes, oil on fabric, c. 1875. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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