This weekend's Beehive Jubilee celebrates pioneers' make-it-yourself music, dance

Music and dance were part of the fabric of life for pioneer communities throughout the West.

"And it wasn't like they could turn on the radio or pop in a CD," said Jan Harris, director of the educational institute at This Is the Place Heritage Park. The pioneers, she said, got their music the old-fashioned way — they made it themselves.

That tradition will be celebrated at the Beehive Jubilee, a three-day folk-music festival that takes place at the park tonight, Saturday and Monday.

The jubilee kicks off tonight with an old-fashioned pioneer dance that will include demonstrations of 19th-century and ethnic dances. Saturday and Monday will be filled with nonstop performances from local folk-music groups, an informal lecture series and workshops dealing with such topics as the banjo, guitar, harmonica and penny whistle. Harmonicas and penny whistles will be available for purchase; if you've ever wanted to learn to play them, this is your chance, Harris said.

The jubilee will wrap up with a Monday-night concert featuring renowned folk singer Rosalie Sorrels, who now lives in Idaho City, Idaho.

The jubilee came about, Harris said, because "we realized there really is no place where old-time Utah, dance and Mormon music is performed anymore. It's a tradition that will die out if people aren't exposed to it. So we want to provide a venue where these songs, these instruments, these traditions can be preserved. We also want to have a lot of fun."

Sorrels is excited to be part of the jubilee, she said by phone from her Idaho cabin. "I always love coming to Salt Lake. I still have lots of friends there."

It was while she was living in Utah in the late 1950s and early '60s that she became an "amateur folk-music collector," while teaching guitar classes at the University of Utah. "I met Wayland Hand, who later became head of the folklore department at UCLA, and he introduced me to the concept of oral transfer of tradition."

Sorrels began collecting Mormon songs, and her work eventually led to a radio program and a couple of recordings. "Then I met Olive Burt. She had collected a lot of songs about various murders, and we'd go around and she'd talk and I'd sing the songs. I loved doing that; she was a charming woman."

Sorrels has since recorded 24 albums, some of old songs she's collected and some of new songs she's written. Her latest CD, "My Last Go Around," was nominated for a Grammy. "It was supposed to be my farewell to the road, but I'm not having much success getting off the road."