(vintage) country-disco

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

This seems like a good thread to ask: can anyone think of any country songs with overt use of synthesizers? (I say "overt," because I've checked out, for instance, a couple early '80s Dolly songs in which a synthesizer player is listed but damn if I can actually hear them... I mean synths as providing essential riffs or at least highly audible background texture.) Only one I'm aware of for sure is Rosanne Cash's "Seven Year Ache," which I totally love.

Not sure if there's technically a synth here or not, Scott (she's playing a piano, and I don't have my copies of her LPs handy to check the liner notes), but the burbling pulse bears a startling resemblance to "I Feel Love" regardless:

There are definitely also '90s country dance mixes (for bands like, say, Confederate Railroad) that have moments in them that sound electronic. But those tend almost inevitably to feel like gratuitous add-ons, more than "essential riffs" (and they usually don't make the songs sound dancier to me, though country line dancers may well disagree.)

The first song on the new Dierks Bentley album (a sort of Bad Company style fugitive boogie) credits "space bass," for whatever that's worth.

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.)