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Plethora of Pop’s Rate-A-Record
Sail On Into 1979
Country/Pop Crossover tunes to rate
Chuck Eddy reminded me today that “Whisperin’” Bill Anderson once released a country disco song. That year was 1978, and maybe you read my country/disco article,
published over at The Riff.
I mention Chuck and Bill because while “I Can’t Wait Any Longer/Joanna” is totally lost on everybody now, it was also sort of lost back then, or at least with me, dropped through the floor in my college house after it caught on fire when my late-roommate Mike lost the hot rock from his joint in an old fabric easy chair he sat in to achieve inner bliss.
Mike liked Country-Rock, but he hated Disco, and so while Neil Young and Nicolette Larsen were cool, Barry White and Donna Summer weren’t. I, however, loved Disco and didn’t know much (or so I thought) about Country. Chuck Eddy says Bill Anderson’s dance tune was influenced by Barry White, and writing that sentence makes me happier than I’ve been in the last hour or two.