Friday Feature: The Untold Story Behind the Beef for Dinner Tune

by | Nov 14, 2025 | Beef Cattle, Feature Video, General Agriculture, Livestock

This week’s featured video is a little unique for the types of videos I normally highlight each week, but there is a connection to agriculture that makes it interesting.  The video was created and published by Sean Dietrich, aka “Sean of the South,” who is a renowned storyteller and fiddle player himself.

William “Willie” Hamilton Step was a poor musician who made his living playing a fiddle at local dances and taverns in Kentucky.  He was the son of a destitute prostitute in Kentucky who found a broken fiddle and rebuilt it as a boy, and then found a fiddler named “Greasy Bill” to train him in the art of fiddling.  Willie become a local legend as an entertainer for taverns, dances, and parties.  While he was well known locally, his true fame came from a folk music recording project for the Library of Congress in 1937.  Willie played one of his favorite songs he called “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” which was recorded in a single take.  Four years later, a young composer, by the name of Aaron Copeland, was searching for an upbeat tempo folk music song for a ballet he was hired to compose for called Rodeo.  Aaron heard Willie’s song and new it was perfect for a section of the musical score he called “Hoe-Down.”  The net result was that the poor fiddle player’s song became an integral part of a famous American Ballet, that later became one of the most recognized of American tunes.  More recently, this tune, with such an American sound, was made even more famous when it was chosen for a television advertising campaign for beef in the 90s and early 2000s.  Watch the video to hear the whole story shared and enjoy one of those Paul Harvey moments, where you learn “The Rest of the Story” about a poor Kentucky fiddler who’s dance tune became a famous American Anthem.  

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If you enjoyed this video, you might want to check the other 350+ YouTube videos highlighted in the Friday Feature Archive

If you come across an interesting, inspiring, humorous or innovative video related to agriculture, please send in a link, so we can share it with our readers.  Use the share button from the YouTube or Facebook video you like and send the link via email to:  Doug Mayo

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