(vintage) country-disco

Ah, thanks xhuxk -- you're right, I think there are some lightly-burbling synths in the Terri Gibbs (pretty sure I heard about this song from you, years ago... I really like it -- I actually turned a dance DJ I know on to it several months back; he considers himself an '80s expert and was amazed that he'd never heard of it).

Space Bass counts, far as I'm concerned. I'll look into it.

Kind of surprised, frankly, that synths didn't enter into country in a big way (I mean, it seems like drum machines did, right? like with Shania Twain and stuff... or am I wrong?).

doesn't Donna Summer, even, do one or two country-ish tracks on *Bad Girls* or *Once Upon a Time*? I'm blanking out on what they're called, though

"There Will Always Be A You" on Bad Girls was one of them.

Hot Chocolate's "So You Win Again" was also a country move of sorts, I think (though I'm told they're only considered a disco group in the U.S., not in Europe, where they were much bigger.)

See, I'm sure you could come up with a (fairly) sizable list from the other direction: synth-based music gone country, but country gone synth-pop seems more far-fetched, oddly enough.

It's neat how the Gibbs and Rosanne Cash are both 1981, too (my favourite music year, incidentally). I might even consider lumping "Bette Davis Eyes" in there: not strictly speaking country, but at the time, I think I may have thought of it as such, at least for a while (and it strikes me as the sort of thing that might've crossed over into that territory, though I don't know).

I imagine there's a fair bit of country-rock, like Eagles and stuff, with synths, however, and that sort of counts too.

Just checked K.T. Oslin's Greatest Hits album Songs From An Aging Sex Bomb, and she credits synth players (usually Glen Ballard) on several songs. Suspect it's not as rare as you think, Scott. (And if you like Terri Gibbs, I suspect you might like K.T. as well.) Might be tough, though, to come up with country songs where synths are a prominent instrument. (Did you skim through all the songs on this thread, though? Bet there's some on here, somewhere. Not remotely convinced that there are more dance-to-country crossovers than the other way around, as much of this thread probably bears out.)

Synths credited in several tracks on Confederate Railroad's Rockin' Country Party Pack, too (not just the "club mixes.") And I bet lots of times, when artists vaguely credit "keyboards" or "percussion," that includes synths; maybe they're just scared to be more specific. Would be really surprised if there aren't a few, too, on some of those '80s Milsap records mentioned upthread.

(Okay, possibly not "percussion", who knows; guess that might imply drum machines more than synths. Ditto "drum loop programming," which I'm seeing on some credits. But a latter-day Mindy McCready CD -- self-titled, 2002 -- lists synths per se' too, fwiw.)

Suspect it's not as rare as you think, Scott.

Well, I think in regards to what I'm looking for, it's possibly even rarer: country music with obvious synth hooks or synth sections, a la "Seven Year Ache" (not to say it has to sound like that, but it has to use synths in as central a way). I dunno... these examples all sound interesting, but it seems to require some serious digging around and to some degree relying on credits. Not that that's a problem or anything, my inquiry's really a shot in the dark to begin with. (Maybe it's safe to say that country absorbs disco and Euro more with its use of beats and subject matter and stuff.)

I mentioned Ronnie Milsap above, but in particular on the synth in country question he's a good one. There are a number of choices here (e.g. "Back On My Mind Again") but consider in particular his cover of "Any Day Now" (from 1982) (#1 country, #14 pop):

Watching that video makes me think of Avalon, both the videos and the songs themselves.

Okay wow, that Terri Gibbs song above, I used to hear it on the radio a lot as a kid, and always thought the singer was male. I thought it was a little weird that a man was singing those lyrics. Now all these years later I learn it's a woman.

Another example of overt synths on a country song is Sylvia's "Nobody" (#1 country, #15 pop). Naturally it's from 1982. I've linked to a youtube version of the original recording below; but youtube also has two live versions from the era where the synths are replaced with horns.

Yeah, I just linked to "Nobody" last week on that Alphabetic Video Jukebox thread; should've thought of that. And here's another one from 1981 (somebody should do a mix CD of this stuff...)

And "Islands In The Stream" (1983) must have some synths, right?

Thinking of Eddie Rabbitt: his duet "You And I" with Crystal Gayle (country #1, 1982) has synths, thought not as overt as the others here, it's a softer cut.

"Islands In the Stream", definitely. In fact most of Kenny Rogers hits from 1980 on are heavy on the synths. For instance, "Love Will Turn You Around":

Juice Newton "Love's Been a Little Bit Hard on Me"

So, on a hunch that this might happen (especially given the slick outfit he's wearing in the foldout gatefold), I plopped down $1 for a copy of Ronnie Milsap's 1979 Images LP at Austin's Citywide garage sale last month. First side turned out to be mostly vulnerably hurt sad-sack ballads -- often good, with soul and blues in the phrasing. But then I flipped the record over, and Holy Toledo -- the five-minute-long opening and closing cuts of Side Two, a cover of Tommy Tucker's 1964 r&b hit "Hi Heel Sneakers" and another song called "Get It Up," are absolutely, unabashed disco tracks, period. Almost with no country in them; in fact, "Get It Up" sounds basically like a late '70s live-band party funk number. "Hi Heel Sneakers" is glitzier, but in both cases, Ronnie leaves no doubt about what he was going for here. (Third cut on the side, "Delta Queen," fits on this thread too, just not as blatantly as those other two -- it's probably as disco as Glen Campbell's "Southern Nights," though.)

Album went #5 country; # 98 pop. And "Get It Up," according to Wiki, did not chart country but went to #43 on the pop chart (a position Joel Whitburn confirms, though AMG for some reason skips it in their discography.) I'm guessing it got disco play; curious whether it crossed over to black radio.

Here's "Get It Up." Wasn't kidding, was I?

wow, that's a hot track! My Ronnie Milsap fandom is mostly from the early 1980s, but it sounds like I'll want to dig deeper.

"Delta Queen" fits on this thread too, just not as blatantly as those other two -- it's probably as disco as Glen Campbell's "Southern Nights"

...mainly because it borrows outight the bassline from "Southern Nights," it turns out. But both songs sound more "swamp" than "disco" to me, to be honest. (And nothing else on Glen Campbell's disappointing Southern Nights LP, which I also just bought for $1, is anywhere near as good, or has much of a groove at all. Unless you're into a dead-assed slowed-down version of "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys, a/k/a the theme from Big Love).

One thing I don't think anybody has talked much about on this thread is how country some (lots of?) really early disco probably was in the first place, simply by virtue of Southern Soul and country music often being kissing cousins. "Morganton, North Carolina," on Johnny Bristol's 1975 Feeling The Magic, definitely has some country in it, to my ears -- from its title on down. And Bristol (born in Morganton, Joel Whitburn confirms) is one of the guys who was then inventing disco, first with "Hang On In There Baby," which went #8 on the pop chart in '74. Curious now about his other stuff, and other '70s Southern soul guys who might fit here.

Guess Big Al Downing (mentioned a few times above) might be an obvious example of that, come to think of it. (But I still don't know his disco stuff, only his country stuff -- and not sure to what extent he ever straddled the line between the two genres.)

post-Angry-Samoans-gig Metal Mike-DJ'd dance-contest party songlist on Angry Samoans myspace lists mostly obvious disco/Euro/dance-pop type stuff (Toy Box, Vengaboys, Gina G, Jocelyn Enriquez, Lady Gaga, Hues Corporation, Carol Douglas, A*Teens, Archies, Kylie, KC, etc.), but also the following three c&w tracks; not sure whether that makes them discofied or not:

YOU CAN FEEL BAD - Patty Loveless
BLACK EYES BLUE TEARS - sHaNiA TwAiN
I'M DIGGIN' IT - Alecia Elliott

"X-Country" by Invisible Man's Band (former 5 Stairsteps of 1970 "O-o-h Child" fame), off Invisible Man's Band (Mango 1980, bought for $1 last month): history's only explicit merger ever of square-dance hillbilly music and Vaughan Mason-type rollerskate disco?: "This here square dancin' for squares/Let's hear that banjo Slim/Don't he play good/Swing your partner round n round/Doo-cee-doe and don't let her go/PROMENADE -- ROLLERSKATE!" Sort of a precursor of Malcolm McLaren's "Buffalo Gals" too, I guess. (Album's got other interesting stuff as well, especially a disco protest called "Rent Strike" -- "We the tenants of 200 W. 100 & 1/8 St. declare Rent Strike all right!" -- and some Marvin Gaye-style funky-space-reincarnation-style astronomy disco called "Full Moon," and some vulnerable early-disco-style falsetto-soul disco called "9 Xs Out Of 10." "All Night Thing" apparently went #45 on the pop chart, but it might only be my fifth favorite out of the six songs here.)

Six of ten songs credit synthesizers on Juice Newton's very new-wavey looking 1983 Dirty Looks ( a sealed copy of which that is no longer sealed cost me a buck), but the only one I could honestly make a claim for "sounding disco" is the LP-opening title track, which clearly takes its electro-dance pulse from Blondie's "Call Me" (which may have taken its own electo-dance pulse in turn from Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave" but never mind); only thing is, I don't know how "country" I'd say "Dirty Looks" sounds -- not very; it's closer to early-Benatar Blondie-discoed rock moves like "We Live For Love" or "Treat Me Right," probably. Went #90 as a single in Billboard; next song, a cover of the Zombies' "Tell Her No," went to #27, though I swear I never heard it before. The other track I like a lot is second-side-opener "Don't Bother Me," glam-shout powerchord country-pop that sounds like a missing link between Suzi Quatro and Shania Twain (with maybe one part in 100 of Stacy Lattisaw's "Attack Of the Name Game" in the rhyme scheme, though that's probably just my imagination.) Also: one slightly rockabillish number and too many ballads, though "Slipping Away" sounds a lot like the sort of slower track Donna Summer could have done in the early '80s, after she "went rock."

Wow! I thought Ronnie Milsap was nothing but sad sack ballads. But that track above is pretty hot (could be hotter pitched up a few notches).

And it leads to more potential country-disco on youtube. Here's Roy Orbison's "Easy Way Out" off 1979's very disco looking Laminar Flow album which I've never heard:

And here's Dave Marsh getting all cranky about what a betrayal this album supposedly is including the occasional "trumped-up disco rhythm."

Although I gotta admit that both the Milsap track and the Orbison one shortchange the country if it exists at all.

Okay there, here's Juice's "Dirty Looks" (theoretically live). Probably some '80s Stevie Nicks in there too, now that I look at it:

27-song playlist I did for Rhapsody a few weeks back. (I'd ammend some of it now, but what the hey):

http://www.rhapsody.com/playlistcentral/playlistdetail?playlistId=ply.28077918

someone (ahem) needs to put together a CDR of this shit. awesome thread. thanks for the links chuck.

The shotgun marriage of country and disco has been a past obsession on mine that was recently reawakened/refueled by this very thread. First, I've got a few things to add to the list:

"A Country Party" -- Jerline & Friends
"Tennessee Waltz" -- Silver Blue
"Nashville Soul" -- The Syndicate (a group that billed themselves as "Nashville's disco band")
"Hot in the Saddle" – Meco
"Big West" – Bionic Boogie

I've also done two podcasts that feature several of the tracks on this thread. You can find them at:

http://www.dsco.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=500440

http://www.dsco.libsyn.com/index.php?post_year=2008&post_month=11

So...anybody ever heard Carole Chase??? (See here):

Rolling Country 2009 Thread

I'm not sure, but maybe this is what you're looking for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4h9775AAfk

The sound isn't good, b/c I gather the sound comes from the record being played onto the video, not a direct rip. But it was on Casablanca West, a subsidiary of the familiar disco label. You can read a bit about the intention for this label here.

It doesn't sound very disco there, I admit. And this is the first I've heard of it; I'm no expert. But the bass comes in loud enough to hear a few times, and its pulse has a disco throb.

She's been singing back-up for Lynryd Skynryd for about 20 years, and writing these songs:

Do You Know Where Your Man Is Tonight - Recorded by Pam Tillis

True Blue Fool - Recorded By Martina McBride

Civil War - Recorded by Ronnie Milsap

Baby, Take a Picture - Rickey Van Shelton

seconding Dolly's "Potential New Boyfriend"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olM4F-w16Ac

had a feeling that track would be mentioned when I clicked this :)

haha yeah the new box is amazing, up until the last five or so songs and I'll warm to them too eventually

I think Joe Ely's Hi-Res album from 1984 deserves a mention on this thread. Not really disco at all, but definitely extremely synthesizer-based, not to mention very influenced by '80s AOR songs (in the vicinity of Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" and Aldo Nova's "Fantasy" maybe) that had in turn been inspired by disco. Got horrible reviews as a sell-out at the time, maybe deservedly in the sense that it's not nearly as good as most of Ely's earlier albums. But I found a $1 copy last month, and I'm finding it pretty interesting regardless -- seems the most compelling cuts aren't so much technobilly things like "Cool Rockin' Loretta" as the slower, spacier, more stretched-out ones near the ends of both sides (murder mystery or whatever "Letter To Laredo," for instance, and "Locked In a Boxcar With the Queen Of Spain"), where Ely's using electronics not so much for beats as for spooky spaghetti-western atmosphere. Plus, the move was gutsy, and as far as I know unique, whether it totally worked or not. (On some other thread, though, I compared it to Neil Young's Trans, which is an exagerration; possibly closer to Warren Zevon's Transverse City from 1989, though I admittedly haven't heard that in over 20 years.)

Theme from The Electric Horseman -- sounds like if the Allman Brothers went full disco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG8qq0b3_ZU

was listening to the bill andersonn disco tracks recently.

horrifying

i can't go through this whole thread, but did anyone mention Kathy Barnes on this thread? Made pretty bad country records on Gene Autry's Republic Records label and then made the Body Talkin' album in 1979 which is actually good. the songs are either country, country soul, or flat-out disco. title tune is the best of the bunch. plus, she's naked on the cover.

so, as far as a country singer taking a successful stab at disco, it gets my vote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmUoIVbL8tI

http://www.coolforever.com/temp/kathybarnes_bodytalking.jpg

really digging this record. true southern fried disco. on TK's Alston label. Janie Fricke on backing vocals.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YmTxZYM_iW0/SZxfkhOKOJI/AAAAAAAADng/TWO6KCpEOcA/s320/bill+pursell+01.jpg

So turns out the most unabashedly disco track -- okay, maybe slightly abashed, but not much -- on Sylvia's 1981 Just Sylvia LP (called, uh, just Sylvia on the front cover -- it's the album with her lone and great pop hit "Nobody") is "Not Tonight" (guy's leaving tomorrow but still all hers tonight, sound has a definite Donna Summer influence), but at least three other songs (probably my three favorites on the album outside of "Nobody") show a pretty pronounced and often synthy sense of dark Europop/dancey-AOR/flashdance-style space at least (rererence points: ONJ, Abba, Sheena Easton, Stevie Nicks, Laura Branigan, Terri Gibbs, though some of those obviously came later) -- "Mirage" (about a guy disappearing into nowhere, a popular sad disco theme, and built around a familiar looped semisymphonic Rhodes hook I can't place, though I swear there's some connection to the proto-synth-pop break in Del Shannon's "Runaway"); "You're A Legend (In Your Own Mind)" ("ode to t.c.," whoever that was, though he was apparently quite full of himself); and "The Mill Song (Somebody's Got A Dream)" (second of two side closers where Sylvia discusses returning to her home town and everything has changed since she left.) None of those were actually country hits, though two other tracks ("Sweet Yesterday" and "Like Nothing Ever Happened," both okay but more generic and not very memorable) were. Album was produced by Tom Collins (a ha -- bet he's "t.c."!); Joel Whitburn says Sylvia was inititally his secretary. Cover credits also include two synth players, two pianists, and a Rhodes guy -- not to menton "The Nashville String Machine" (who were fairly ubiquitous, I think?). (I also had a best-of CD by her once, though I'm not seeing it on my shelf; I either got rid of it or it's in storage. If the latter, I'll try to put it on someday, though given that no other songs I love here were singles -- and this was her highest charting of five early '80s albums -- I'm not that optimistic.)

Thanks in part to this thread I recently posted another country disco outing on my podcast; it includes some stuff that's been kicked around here (as well as plenty that hasn't). I was especially happy to learn about Carol Chase and Bill Purcell. You can hear it at:

http://www.dsco.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=608653

picked up this 12 inch yesterday. so great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfickh0_Sxw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZGJy35RAU

got a great record yesterday. KOUNTRY KILOWATTS by TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY.

i think its the album to beat for this thread. serious steel guitar/fiddle/mandolin disco instrumentals. titles like HIGH VOLTAGE, DOWN HOME DISCO, BANDIDO, BOOGIE YOUR BUTT OFF, HONKIN'. on Ovation Records. 1976.

apologies if its been mentioned. thread is kinda long.

i need to hear a lot more of this stuff.

So, Bill Anderson's Ladies Choice -- MCA, 1979. Probably the most country-disco album I've ever heard, so far; takes unashamed disco throb and orchestration (used on maybe 75 percent of the album --"I Can't Wait Any Longer," mentioned by Timmy Tannin at the top of this thread, is only one of the most blatant examples) as a natural extension of '70s schlock-ballad countrypolitan; includes covers of future country act Exile's Chinn/Chapmann-penned pop-chart-topping glam-disco-popper "Kiss You All Over" and future country one-hit-wonder Lionel Richie's r&b schmaltz classic "Three Times A Lady." Album title telegraphs the concept -- almost every song is a seduction number for the ladies, usually about one night stands, frequently set in singles bars for the presumably midlife-crisis impaired. Most ridiculous song: "Double S," where Bill picks up a babe in a bar whose nametag says "S.S." on it, and he tries to guess what those intitals stand for to no avail, and she orders a Scotch and Soda, and he drives her back to her hotel (the Surf And Sand, or something like that) because she's flying out tomorrow on a Seven Oh Seven (which he guesses because he's Super Smart.) (Only disapppointment is that they don't watch Sesame Street together after Sloppy Sex, since that show's where the alliterative cadence seems to come from, and she doesn't wind up revealing herself as a She Wolf of the S.S.) Next song is about making love to a "Married Lady," which sounds totally sleazy, but then at song's end, surprise, it turns out she's married to the singer, awww. Anyway, what really puts it all over the top is that Anderson recites most of the songs in a kind of hushed, talked tone that, as far as I can think of, might be unique in the country music realm -- with the disco embellishments, he winds up seeming like a country equivalent of Barry White, or maybe early '70s Isaac Hayes. Turns out, though, that that vocal style is not something Anderson concocted specifically for this album. AMG: "One of the most successful songwriters in country music history, Bill Anderson was also a hugely popular singer in his own right, earning the nickname 'Whispering Bill' for his gentle, airy vocal style and occasional spoken narrations." I don't know his other stuff at all, though he'd apparently been charting with country albums -- including lots of top 10s -- since 1964. But, according to the Whitburn country chart book I have, Ladies Choice, which peaked at #44, was his last regular issue LP to chart. (A Best Of hit #64 in '91, but that's it.) Not sure if that means the disco effectively killed his career; fwiw, his two previous albums in '77 and '78 (which may or may not have had country-disco on them) barely reached the lower 30s, so his era was clearly already on the wane.

.."On the wane" in chart terms, anyway; he's apparently still around, though, since he does a (mostly talked) duet with Jamey Johnson on the title track of JJ's forthcoming The Guitar Song album.

Closely related to this thread, there was some scattered talk earlier this year on the Rolling Country thread about Barbara Mandrell's r&b influences; here for instance (but search her name for more):

Rolling Country 2010

"Potential New Boyfriend" is cool. Parton also released a synthed-up covers album (produced by Motels and Kim Carnes fave Val Garay) the following year called The Great Pretender.

Check out "Save the Last Dance For Me" – and its opening chord!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzAPh5I2ua8