Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: George Yoshida Interview
Narrator: George Yoshida
Interviewers: Alice Ito (primary), John Pai (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: February 18, 2002
Densho ID: denshovh-ygeorge-01-0030

GY: In Poston, it was, we were called the Music Makers. And I think that the name was taken from a very popular dance band led by Harry James, who was a great trumpet player. Played jazz with Benny Goodman. And his parents were members of a circus band. Harry James played jazz trumpet, first with Benny Goodman, and many -- he's on many of these earlier jazz records that Goodman produced. Then he started his own band, and his band was called the Music Makers. And one of the popular tunes was a waltz called "Sleepy Lagoon." It was a very beautiful, quiet waltz, which was very, very popular in the United States and, of course, in our camps, too. It's a waltz, "Sleepy Lagoon."

So that was life in camp. And most of the records -- or rather -- excuse me. Most of the dances were dances where the music was supplied by records. They were, they were plentiful. And there may have been one or two -- excuse me -- internees who may have had fairly good record-playing system, a player with a large speaker. It may have been homemade. I really don't know, or order through mail. So they're the ones who -- I guess they're called disc jockeys today, DJs today. So they played most of the music. And we had plenty of records in camp. Mail order, orders for most items were available through camp catalogs. And that's how business was done in those days, purchasing was done in those days. So it was kind of nice, nice time for me to play the music we loved.

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