Various "The Best of Country Swing as selected by Dancing Dan vol.1" 1980***

I found this LP in the $1 bin at the Right On!!! Napa record store in California. Judging purely from its cover, I thought this is the type of record I should bring back from the USA. The fact that the songs were personally selected by Dancing Dan enhanced my decision to buy it even though I didn't know who he was - I thought he'd probably be a famous DJ on some country radio station, but the truth turned out to be even more impressive, as, according to the liner notes, "Dancing Dan is the foremost authority on Country Swing dancing. Dan pioneered the dance and owns the nation's largest Country Swing dance school through which he graduates eight to ten thousand people a year. He is author of the best book ever written on the subject entitled, Dancing Dan's Official Guide to Country Swing. Dan also sponsors a national Country Swing contest each year. Every song on this album has been personally selected by Dan not only for its dancibility but also for its listening pleasure. We are proud to bring you this tremendous collection of fine artists. Be looking for Volume II!"

Now I'm not a C&W connoisseur, but I'd expect the name of at least one artist among the best of Country Swing to ring some bell - but no! And that's entirely understandable because while the album clearly states it's about Country Swing, I was translating it in my mind as Western Swing - that old illegitimate child of hillbilly folk and dixieland jazz. Instead, country swing isn't exactly a type of music, but a dance: imagine a bunch of couples wearing cowboy hats and boots doing all the turns, dips, and flips you're familiar with from swing ballroom dancing, but set to country music - although apparently not always in tune with it. I mean, I watched country swing videos on youtube before this review, and it's like watching people dance on a TV with the sound switched off while some different music plays on the stereo. Have you tried it? Occasionally, the music matches the dancers' moves with hilarious results, but it's not like ballet or ballroom where the music and dance are in harmony. Which is fine, because it allows for the inclusion of some non-dancey but very agreeable tunes including the Eagles-like country rock of The David Dollar Revue on "Looking For Love" that opens Side 2. On the other end of the spectrum, Side 1 opens with Troup Deluxe's "Cherokee Fiddle" - that fiddle will make your feet move to the beat whether you like it or not! Most of the tracks are recorded at the same studio in Tucson, Arizona, possibly specifically for inclusion here. Nevertheless many of them were included in previous albums by the said artists, so these are probably re-recordings? Not that any of them has a long discography behind them - with the exception of Chuck Wagon & The Wheels who, according to discogs, have released 5 albums to their name. The lyrical content of the songs is as banal as can expected: the suffering of love, the joys of the simple life, and the celebration of music and dancing - as in Chuck Wagon's "Dance Tonite" or, even better, The Saddle City Band's "Dancing Cowboys". I mean that one starts off with "We like boots and saddles/We like girls and guitars". These are words to live by, these are the words I want written on my gravestone. On second thought, probably not; people would think they've got the wrong grave and I'd never get flowers. Musically, it's all more or less typical country music from a time before it became overtly polished and commercial. I especially like the jaunty banjo on Frank & Woody's "Sometimes I Think" and the bar room piano of Two Crisp Bills' "Back Door Man". Duncan Stitt's (from The Saddle City Band) "It's The Music In Me" and Deadly Earnest's "Wheeler Inn Cafe" get me humming every time, too. But generally this is a compilation of, mostly nondescript, not highly danceable, C&W - from a time, I repeat, that country was still an organic and genuine music style - which counts for something.

**** for Cherokee Fiddle (Troupe Deluxe, John E. Mann), Looking For Love (The David Dollar Revue), It's The Music In Me (Duncan Stitt)

*** for A Hundred Miles From Denver (Chuck Wagon & The Wheels), Dancing Cowboys (The Saddle City Band), Wheeler Inn Cafe (Deadly Earnest And The Honky Tonk Heroes), Sometimes I Think (The Frank & Woody Show), Draw The Line (Billy Odom), Back Door Man (Two Crisp Bills),

** for Dance Tonite (Chuck Wagon & The Wheels), Haloed Hearts (The David Dollar Revue), Being Alone Is Better Than Going Back To You (Chuck Wagon & The Wheels)