(vintage) country-disco

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band/Linda Ronstadt "American Dream" qualifies.

Lee Hazlewood - "Your Thunder And Your Lightnin"

>i'm going to use your suggestions to make a CDRGO. it'd be nice to have >a definitive tracklist. it could take a while to find all these... does >anyone feel generous enough to YSI a few things?

Please send this to me.

Yacht R & B. (by the by those tracks always sound like a direct influence on R Kelly's "Fiesta" and "Ignition"!)

Are there any early loft type songs that might pass?

There's an MP3 here http://www.mushrumps.com/shrumps/dailyshrump.php?idayno=7

but further.. I have no idea.

Wait, so is that the same Diesel who did "Sausalito Summernight"? I never thought of that as country:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZfrkWDAQpzI

But this is: Barbara Mandell, "Is It Love Yet"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nch-ENnAtRE

Related, somehow or other, and usually really weird:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PG0y7VdFSXM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fpwRjmfgmSc&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BccPbsKva0Q&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VCBm3LHUlBE

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UXOe-1FA0h0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=enlAjUJCxuc&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ifHqKm4W2Ns&feature=related

Also: Eddie Rabbitt's "Someone Could Lose A Heart Tonight" belongs on this thread somewhere.

has anyone mentioned Tony Joe White's disco stuff--"I Get Off On It," '80 on Casablanca? And George Jones' '78 Bartender's Blues cut "I Ain't Got No Business Doing Business Today" is also a great disco tune, complete with saucy background chicks.

what about T. Graham Brown?

Did T. Graham Brown every actually do any disco per se? I know he has lots of stuff that's basically soul music, but I don't know his dancier stuff well.

I'm really obsessed with the songs that are picked for country line-dancing on youtube, like that "Red Hot Salsa" one and the Leroy Parnell one about hot tamales, which all the videos call "Hot Tamales" (I guess that's the name of the dance?), even though that's not the name of the song. There are also line dance videos to John Anderson's "Funky Country" up on youtube. And thing is, these were never country hits. So I don't get if it starts with crate-digging by DJs hunting for country songs that have a great beat (just like hip-hop DJs back in the old days), or if certain songs are plugged to country line- dance clubs, or what. I'm curious about the process.

"Red Hot Salsa" -- which sounds like country set to Latin rhythms, but not Mexican ones -- is apparently by some guy named Dave Sheriff who I've never heard of before, and there are tons of videos up on youtube with people dancing to it, many of them in central Europe, where for all I know there's been a country dancing craze for years. Sheriff's version sounds better than the Mano Wyoming one I linked to.

boys don't cry - "i wanna be a cowboy"

Hey guys - can any of you recommend some Country-Rap-Disco? Something like Bubba Sparxx or Nappy Roots, with an uptempo beat.

Rob - I don't know of anything else along the lines of uptempoed Bubba (who made my 2003 country critics ballot) or Nappy, though I'm sure it's out there. David Banner's "Cadillac On 22s" got on enough country ballots (incl. mine) to make the Nashville Scene's year-end poll list, though I'd call that song country-blues-rap without any disco in sight. I assume you already know about Big & Rich's hip-hop nods (though their tendency is more funk than disco) and Cowboy Troy's hick-hop. The "Barn Dance Mix" of Troy's "I Play Chicken With The Train" is unabashed disco-country-rap (though not much like Bubba or Nappy) and was one of the few redeeming moments on his second album.

And a couple of us think that Taylor Swift's "Lose Yourself" (here in a blue dress and here in a violet dress) is the best non-hip-hop version of a hip-hop song ever, and it's totally Taylor, though again not particularly Bubba or Nappy or disco.

And as long as we're abandoning Jody Beth's "vintage" requirement, there's a bootleg "D-Bop Radio Edit" dance remix of Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" that veers towards freestyle and Italodisco. And Miley Cyrus's "See You Again" is basically a rockabilly song given a Moroder-disco beat (and is more country than the duet with her dad, though that's the track that got onto the country stations).

And Texas Lightning's "No No Never" (Germany's voyage in 2006 to a strange land called Eurovision) is a country song that doesn't disguise its Europop heart.

weird. i was just listening to Paul Delicato's "Off on an Island" record when i saw this thread. i bought it because it's on AVI records, but then heard this mix of disco & country and kinda recoiled in horror. it's mostly terrible with a few moments that shine through. will definitely be in the trash pile soon though.

http://dreamchimney.com/slvs/IMG_1644_20060814072359.jpg

Edd's nomination of Tony Joe White's Casablanca record might be the most exact fit, but I'm surprised to be the only one to say Tompall Glaser's "I Just Want to Hear the Music" off his '77 record (the opening song of which, "You Can Have Her," has one of the slinkiest funk basslines i've ever heard wobble on a country track); "Music" locks into a hi-hat disco groove and rides it all the way.

Dave and Sugar surely have a few records that fit the bill. I had a couple of their LPs, and definitely recall some thump in there, but "The Door is Always Open" is the only one that comes to mind.

Terri Gibbs is a good call, too. When "Somebody's Knockin'" hit, it really jumped out of C&W radio at the time with a modern kind of beat, a strangely minimal melody and a new-wavish sexual anxiety. When I first saw her on TV (Hee-Haw, probably), I thought the shades were cool, but when I realized she was blind, that made sense, too.

Mentioned this album upthread:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=u4nUmEragqg&feature=related

And if this doesn't count as uptempo country-rap-disco, I don't know what would:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rg5iOpwH8sw

This song is probably somewhere in the neighborhood too (though maybe not necessarily these versions):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YSf6Mrz9TtM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3HdbaHeFzYM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=k68aWJB7ats&feature=related

Kool Moe Dee didn't sound country, but he was a cowboy anyway:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IuDL-TcKXoY

And actually, there were occasional old rap songs that incorporated a country influence, like Onyx's almost unknown single "Ah And We Do It Like This," from a few years before they had actual hits. (And don't Field Mob have a country-ish song or two? Probably not as country as Bubba, though, but he really only did it on his second album, right?)

Silver Spurz Orchestra, "Happy Trails"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=O1kWKURg59M&feature=related

Skatt Brothers, "Life At The Outpost" -- holy shit!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eLTLbwT5CKc&feature=related

Hilarious biography of Showdown, of Welcome to the Rodeo non-fame:

http://www.canadianbands.com/Showdown.html

Tanya Tucker made some moves in this direction during the TNT era. Not from that album, but Crossfire of Desire is a hot one.

I was thinking Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds or Firefall ...

Pussycat -- "Mississippi" ('70s Euro hit, apparently):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbi2i0j0k9M

Well, it says "disco" in the background of that clip, anyway, though maybe that was the TV show's name. But it's really more Abba-country than disco-country (as is the Pussycat LP with that song on it.)

Just noticed this in the first/1979/red edition of the Rolling Stone Record guide; anybody heard them?:

Addrisi Brothers / Bud. 5694
Slick, processed disco sung by this songwriting duo and produced and recorded in Nashville by country session master Norbert Putnam. Will 1977 be remembered as the year of cracker disco? Probaby not. -- J.S.

Youtube search turns up four clips -- two seemingly non-country pop disco, one vocal performance from 1959 (that's when they had their first Top 100 hit, according to Whitburn, and then they didn't get another one until 1972, 13 years later -- also, one guy wrote "Never My Love" for the Association), and what seems to be a slowed down cover of the Nanny and the Professor theme song. (Unless the song was slower than I remember it -- I'd forgotten all about that show. Definitely liked it as a kid.)

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=addrisi+brothers&search_type=

just picked up this 12"

chuck mentions donna summer upthread. don't know if he had this song in mind, but country-disco is how i've always thought of it.

I love this stuff, and there's more of it that you'd think (I tell you now, two years too late). Disco daddy David Mancuso got the ball rolling when he used to play cuts from funky Nashville supergroup Area Code 615 (especially "Stone Fox Chase") during the early days of the Loft, which means that the shotgun marriage twixt disco and country goes way, way back to the start. Let me also steer you to Bobby Rush, "I Wanna Do the Do" and Phily Cream with their Southern-fried disco turn on "Soul Man." I've got all three of those as well as the Tony Joe White stuff mentioned earlier in this thread in a couple of my pocasts at www.dsco.libsyn.com should you want to hear 'em. Finally, Stevie Wonder seems to have one foot in the stirrup and the other on the dance floor with "I Ain't Gonna Stand For It" on Hotter Than July.

More, maybe:

Country techno

Gotta say I never thought of the opening of "Born To Be Alive" as country music, but maybe it is.

Finally, Stevie Wonder seems to have one foot in the stirrup and the other on the dance floor with "I Ain't Gonna Stand For It" on Hotter Than July.

I was just going to mention this song.

Ha ha, that Stevie Wonder song description reminds me of this verse from "Last Child" by Aerosmith (who were maybe never country-disco, per se' though they were definitely a little bit country on occasion -- e.g., "Chip Away At The Stone" -- and probably at least a little bit disco sometimes, as well):

Hates in the city
And my loves in the meadow
Hands on the plow
And my feets in the ghetto

And Big Al Downing, a black guy mainly known as a country (and, earlier, rockabilly) singer supposedly made a disco move in the late '70s too, I believe; whether he stayed country when he went disco is a subject for further research, I guess.

― xhuxk (xheddy)

"I'll be holding on" by Big Al Downing is one of my favourite disco songs, it's not very country though with the exception of it including good bit of banjo playing.

Alicia Bridges' "I Love the Nightlife (Disco Round)" sounds country on the verses & then goes disco on the choruses.

maybe i just imagined that k-tel dance country compilation

No I didn't -- except it's not on K-Tel; It's Warner Special Products. It's called Swingin' Country, subtitled "Dance To The Best Of Country"; came out in 1984. Songs by John Anderson, Emmylou Harris, Gary Morris, The Whites, Hank Williams Jr, Earl Thomas Conley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Lee, Gail Davies, Bellamy Brothers, Mel Tellis, Gilley's "Urban Cowboy" Band, and T. G. Sheppard. Not sure off hand whether any of them are remotely disco, though; someday I'll go back and check.

Ronnie Milsap's "Stranger In My House" surely counts here, no?

Bonnie Tyler -- "Got So Used To Loving You." (Most country-rock-disco track on her Euro-country-heavy 1978 The Hits Of LP, though "Heaven" is also notable for sounding a lot like "Itchykoo Park.")

Lotta Love * Nicolette Larson ( 12" Extended Disco Version )

Disco band Belle Epoque's excellent 1979 album Now has a couple blatant Euro-country songs in the middle of its second side ("Loving You" and especially the very Bonnie Tyler-like "Stranger Once Again"), but like lots of acts they seem to keep their disco in a separate box. (The track I really love, "Lose My Man," is more blues-rock, almost. And in "Com'On Tonight" they revive the Diddley beats they'd used in their earlier hit "Miss Broadway").

you have to listen to it all or maybe it'll just sound like disco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVqXxK-gK0w&feature=related

Probably Tony Joe White got mentioned upthread, but has anyone heard his 'Real Thang" LP? Didn't look too hard, but "Get Off On It" is pretty nasty!

^ I mean, I haven't heard anything else off the album but this one song... would be interested to know what the rest of the album sounds like. There's a track called "disco blues" also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoasSfLFQ8

That was awesome. Thanks for posting.

really dig steve young but had not heard that one until today

Fabulous Poodles weigh in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEaI9xj9e8w

Just remembered this existed today, after at least 25 years - Presumably the only Eddie Rabbit cover ever produced by Was (Not Was).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS8OMOXIObA

Lacy J. Dalton - "Imagine That" (on #23-country-charting album 16th Avenue, 1982)

Glen Campbell and Tanya Tucker - 'Why Don't We Just Sleep on It Tonight' is a lost country-disco classic. Just incredible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSW0ZjiNu_k

Sheila B. Devotion "Seven Lonely Days" (1979) sounds to me a like a pop-country song from that era given an over-the-top Eurodisco-synth rhythm.

Gimme Baby I'm Burnin' instead

This is not that different from Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing." In fact I think I prefer it.

That was a wild sequence of #1s though, the ones you mention. I remember it so well. Peak singles bar era.

Is Dolly the only country artist to get the proper 12" treatment or is this thread holding out?

Extended version of baby I'm burning is the best thing that ever happened to me. Did Tammy just do this with the klf?

not disco-era, but reba mcentire had a hit 12-inch when her version of "you keep me hangin' on" from her 1995 album was remixed