| Items | Total |
|
| Home Blue Star Hi Hat Round Dances Rawhide About BWM / Staff Buddy's Site |
| Error PopUp |
| PopUpText |
| Items | Total |
|
| Buddy Weaver Music — Our Calling Staff | About BWM About Blue Star About HiHat About Rawhide All |
Buddy Weaver Music (BWM) unites the legendary square dance labels Blue Star, Hi Hat, and Rawhide—along with their many subsidiaries—under one banner. BWM holds copyrights for releases from 1 World, Blue Star, Bee Sharp, Blue Ribbon, Bob Cat, Bogan, Dance Ranch, DJ, ELK (karaoke), El Dorado, EZ for Schools, Female Edition Blue Star, Hi Hat (Squares & Rounds), Lightning S, Lore, Lucky, Petticoat Patter, Platinum, Rockin’ A, Square L, and Swinging Square.
Founded in 1956 by Norman and Nadine Merrbach, Blue Star became the world's largest and longest-running square dance label. Over the next three decades, the Merrbachs built an empire—acquiring or creating Bogan, Lore, Swinging Square, Rockin’ A, Dance Ranch, Bee Sharp, and Petticoat Patter (the only all-female-vocal label).
Ownership passed to Johnnie and Star Wykoff in 1987, and to Buddy Weaver in 2002. Under his leadership, square dance music became all-digital label, and the world was introduced to a contemporary square dance sound. Since 2018, the Buddy Weaver Podcast has celebrated and shared square dance recordings, free to the public.
Hi Hat Dance Records was founded in 1963 by Merl and Deliah Olds, Los Angeles callers who worked with Hollywood studio musicians after Merl's tenure at Sets in Order Records. In 1976, Ernie and Lani Kinney acquired the label, adding Blue Ribbon, ELK, and DJ Records. The Kinneys produced over 130 vocals before Buddy Weaver acquired the catalog in 2004, later reuniting the round-dance library (2019) for enhanced digital MP3 releases.
Founded in 1982 by Dick and Becky Waibel, Rawhide produced enduring square dance classics with music by Ken Carlton and later Jim Kline. In 2016, Buddy Weaver revived the label as Rawhide Music, using advanced analog-to-digital restoration—baked tapes and virgin-vinyl processing—for superior sound. Rawhide Music remains the only label offering $1.99 hoedowns, promoting accessible, professional-grade music for today's callers.
Click to Request Email Notifications of New Releases
