Line Dancers

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I've seen line dancing denigrated on this forum by several people lately. It is blamed for the state of country music and for the decline in live music venues, among other things. I just want to say this: I enjoy playing for line dancers!

Line dancers don't watch the band. They're busy in their own little world, counting 5-6-7-8 in their head against whatever song the band is playing. In a way, they're like steel players in their concentration.

Now and then I look up and see that synchronized wave of people dancing, and I dig it! It's more relaxing to play for line dancers, because they're not hanging on every note coming out of the steel. They like steel because of the country flavor it adds to the band, but they really don't listen to the music much. They are too busy performing.

One small club that I play at now and then has a group of 3 or 4 women who really do "perform" a line dance. They get up and and it's like a revue. The crowd really enjoys it.

I like playing Hawaiian shows behind hula dancers, too. Music has always provided the backdrop for dance. Why do line dancers in particular have such a bad rap among steel players? I don't get it.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
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Jim Phelps · From: Mexico City, Mexico

I have nothing against line dancers or line dancing itself, in fact the biggest crowds I've seen in country-music nightclubs was during the beginnings of linedancing in the early '80's. The Urban Cowboy craze. I DO have a problem with the disco-fied versions of country songs that I've been hearing more and more of lately, apparantly sampled and adapted into a kindof a hip-hop/disco/country whatever, complete with chest-pounding subwoofing bass. They think that's country? A very popular "new" country club on the strip in Vegas plays this crap on every break. I was surprised to find the same junk 'way out in "country" clubs even in little towns in Kansas! Line dancings fine, but this disco-country noise makes me sick. I guess it could be said it brings the people in, but GEEZ.

Patrick Ickes · From: Upper Lake, CA USA

B0b,
You hate Banjo and you like line dancers?!?!.

Let's get a rope boys!!

How's cloverdale treating you? We'll be at the fiddle contest later this month. Is your number in the book yet, I'll give you a call.
I think the reason most folks don't like line dancers is that they can only dance to the exact song, tempo, key, etc that their little minds learned it too. They can't dance to a shuffle, it's always a funk/rock-n-roll beat. They don't buy any liquor, expect free water, and bitch at a cover charge. How do you you spell DJ!!!!! They are rude on the dance floor, rude to the band, cliquee, arrogant and stuck up. They don't know how to dance with the opposite sex and generally smell of B.O.. That little queer Richard Simmons probably invented line dancing.
Hope you had a nice Christmass in you new house, and Happy New Year.
Thanks for the forum!!!
See you soon,
Pat

Tommy Minniear · From: Logansport, Indiana

Line dancers don't pay the bills(band). Most that I've seen don't drink--only water and soda(got to be sober to get all those steps just right). Yet, they are the most demanding in the request they make and take up the largest part of the dance floor. I never noticed line dancers being overly fond of the steel guitar. Sorry, I've had to play for a bunch of them and I never got the impression that they gave two hoots about the steel guitar. They are more into the "beat". Now, a nice two step song is a whole different ball game. I love to look out over the crowd from a stage and watch what appears to be a "sea of couples" floating along. Line dance clubs and quite a few bars that tried to cater to them, started shutting down left and right a few years back. I see a few people(mostly overweight females) attempt it once in awhile, but for the most part they are dyin' breed. I think that the complaints heard here are from steel players, but I bet if you checked other Forums for guitar players, etc. it would be pretty consistant.JMHO.

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Tommy Minniear
www.ntsga.com

Herb Steiner · From: Spicewood TX 78669

I've seen line dancing as long as I've lived in Texas... close to 30 years.

Back in the 70's. Typically, a couple of times in a whole month's worth of gigs, you'd see three or four fat girls in front of the bandstand doing a dance called "the Four Corners." Just like today's line dancing. I always thought it was the dance for an unattractive someone who couldn't find a partner.

The Four Corners was a very occasional thing. Predominantly couples danced ballroom style dancing... two folks of opposite genders facing each other, touching, with the woman going backwards.

Back in 1982... the height of the Urban Cowboy Scare, I went back to LA for a visit and went into a country nightclub in Santa Monica where an old friend, a waitress I knew from the Palomino, was working. The place was packed and every freakin' dance was a line dance. My friend said "hey Herb, how 'bout this, we're dancing just like in Texas."

I replied, "well, not really. Only the fat girls dance like that, and not all that often."

"Well, our dance instructor told us that everyone in Texas dances this way. How do they dance there?"

"Ballroom style. Men and women face each other, touch, and do two-steps, fox trots, waltzes, things like that."

She said "Well, in LA, you don't want strangers touching you and looking you in the eye."

Made sense to me.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

[This message was edited by Herb Steiner on 02 January 2002 at 10:25 PM.]

Jim Phelps · From: Mexico City, Mexico

Sorry guys I was thinking of the 2-steppers along with line dancing. The 2-steppers really were a nicer bunch than the current bunch of line-dancers, but I must've been lucky so far not to encounter any of the real rude kind mentioned.

Johan Jansen · From: Europe

Ouch!!
In Holland this is a big industry, and has also attracked musicians to it. A lot of them came out of the wedding-party bands, and have not the "country-feel", but play for a few bucks. The line-dancers don't hear the difference between quality, as long as they can do their silly walks, they even dance on the wheather-broadcast!
Because this industry wears out the countrybands in Holland, a lot of the good ones faded away, as the danceschools learned them to dance coutry-samba's , cha-cha etc.
Now linedancers walk on stage and ask you to play a song with 120 PPM, etc. This has nothing to de with music anymore, but with all things in life, the real things will survive finaly

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STEELDAYS 2002
my web-site
my bands CODand TSC

Ernie Renn · From: Brainerd, Minnesota USA

I don't dislike line dancers, (much.) The thing that bothers me about them is: hearing them say, "You played that too fast/slow" or "it doesn't sound like the record" or "play something good next, okay?" Not all dance clubs are like this, but then again, a lot are.

The club we're playing at this week has two different line dance clubs. Singles and couples. they are generally pretty easy to please, but that is because the instructor stays around until the members have gone home. The dancers are kept busy with the instructor helping them do their steps correctly.

The club owners dislike catering to them because they almost always drink soda pop or water. I do understand it's hard to do some of the steps when you are tipsy. It's forced some of the clubs to charge for water and higher prices for soda pop.

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My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
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Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I have no problem with the individual people, but like some have said they just want certain types of songs. They are happy if you play boot scootin boogie clone songs all night. They are just as happy (or more) with a DJ then they are with a live band.

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

...think line-dance....think disco....think stoned out of their minds..... I didn't see any "water drinkers" unless it was to chase the half-pints sneaked into the place in their cowboy boots so they didn't have to buy at the bar...

The last one of those fiascos that I ever worked (or ever will) was comprised of about 3-400 late-teen to early-twenties crowd with most of them (especially the girls) stoned out of their mind. Two girls actually ran on-stage and snatched the hat off the vocalist and disappeared with it into the crowd....security never found it!

The band was expendable....all that crowd needed (or wanted)was a drum-track and a boom-box bass-line pounding away at the same tempo all night. www.genejones.com

[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 03 January 2002 at 05:14 AM.]

Johan Jansen · From: Europe

If you ever notice a creature that's 5 feet long, has one tooth and smells like urine.....

It's probably a line-dancer from Holland

No kidding, I hold nothing against linedancing, but I blame the carnaval-industry around it, and that has nothing to do with music. JJ

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STEELDAYS 2002
my web-site
my bands CODand TSC

Chris Schlotzhauer · From: Colleyville, Tx. USA

Hey Herb, I agree. The first time I heard the term "line dancing", I said that's the old "four corners" that the fat girls always did in small groups because they couldn't find a partner. Tulsa Time was the song that got 'em goin'.
What I find amusing about line dancing is no one ever figured out what to do with the arms.

Chris Walke · From: St Charles, IL

People who can't think up their own dance steps are even less likely to accept a single song they haven't heard on the radio over and over and over and over and over...

These people do not listen to music really, and I bet most would rather have a dj at the club than a live band.

Robots.

Jeff Lampert · From: queens, new york city

Jeff Lampert · From: queens, new york city

And another thing, as far as enjoying playing for line dancers, when I was playing steel in the 70's, we were doing a lot of country-rock stuff by groups and artists like New Riders, Poco, Grateful Dead, Commander Cody, Ronstadt, Waylon and Willie, EmmyLou and the Hot Band, etc. You would get 150 or so 20-30 year-olds crammed up to the stage, yelling and screaming like lunatics for the band. Now we play for 45-60 year old line dancers, who often don't even acknowledge the band with a polite round of applause. There is quite a difference there. Just so you know.

[This message was edited by Jeff Lampert on 03 January 2002 at 08:00 AM.]

Steve Feldman · From: Central MA USA

I feel sort of 'embarrassed' just watching line dancers do their thang....I'd have to be awfully drunk to get up there like that....

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

I've played clubs where the owner told us to take longer breaks because the patrons didn't drink as much while dancing.

John De Maille · From: On a Mountain in Upstate Halcottsville, N.Y.

I played in the metro N.Y. and L.I. area's, back in the late 70's and 80's. And, I can tell you all for a fact, that, the line dancers and the music they were being forced to listen to, destroyed the business as we all new it. There were great clubs in Manhatten and on Long Island, but, they're all but gone now, save one or two. The little clubs couldn't afford to pay the bands because, the dancers on the whole didn't drink, and free buffet's were often offered for enticement. Therefore, the single D.J. and his box of discs took over. Or, you had a single singer performing to canned music. The 4 or 5 piece bands couldn't get a job locally. If you were booked into the remaining clubs, the booking time was months in advance. It didn't matter how good you were either. The bad bands were all bunched together with the good bands. it didn't matter at the club, because the line dance insructor took up an hour or more of your peak playing time, and usually filled the dance floor.
Am I annoyed about it? Mostly, yes, but we still get to play the local Firehouse dances and occassionally some local fairs. Sometimes somebody will call for us to do an outside park job, or an opening of a new bank or something like that. The scene has changed, and I'm still stuck in the glorious past.

Billy Johnson · From: Nashville, Tn, USA

b0b,the problem I have is when they count
5 6 7 8, and your playin "Momma don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys"
Billy

Greg Vincent · From: Folsom, CA USA

My trouble with line dancers is that they don't request SONGS, they request kinds of DANCES. They also expect the category of dance to be announced before you launch into the song so that they'll know how to dance.

This requires that the band know which songs correspond to a "tush push" and which are good for an "electric slide" etc. So now we musicians also have to become familiar with all these different line dance forms, which is an area many of us have no interest in.

Plus we have to count the dance off for them!

I love playing for dancers, but it's tiresome to have to babysit them. Line dancers require a lot of babysitting.

GV

P.S. Have they even invented any line dances for songs in 3/4 or 6/8?

Tommy Minniear · From: Logansport, Indiana

See b0b! Billy is a lead guitar player (and a fine one I might add)! I kicked off "Waltz Across Texas" one night and looked up to discover that they had figured out a way to line dance to a waltz! It was at a club called Do-Dahs in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Broke my heart!

I don't really have a true dislike for line dancers, I just see them for what they are.

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Tommy Minniear
www.ntsga.com

jlsmith48 · From: blackwell ok usa

Ever notice that there is a male line dancer that is in every club in the United States? He dresses this way. Flat black hat with silver band,sharp toed boots with silver tips,white shirt with black vest. Black knit pants wit a damned keychain with 40 keys on it. His faces change,but he's in every club we play in. Do'nt tell me you hav'nt seen him!! he's the only guy out there with 40 women. REAL MEN DON'T LINE DANCE!!!!!!

Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

Not that I have anything against line dancing, my problem is when I go out to hear another band, my wife forces me to dance (I can't dance and hate it immensly), and we have to watch out for our lives to make sure we don't get trampled by the herd. They don't care if there are non-line dancers on the floor. They believe they have the sole right of way.

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Carter D10 9p/10k
Richard Sinkler

John Steele · From: Renfrew, Ontario, Canada

For me, it's more because I dislike Pop Culture in all (most) of it's forms. I've tried to learn to appreciate it... no dice.
And it's not Line Dancers in particular. It also includes
- Spectators who loudly "Yee-haw" there way through a traditional fiddle tune, yet would not support a fiddle festival, or traditional music festival, etc...
- People who insist on imposing on some bagpiper to "pipe them in" to their wedding/anniversary supper, who don't care a fig about bagpipe music...
- People who rush breathlessly to "Riverdance" who couldn't sit through a Cheiftains album without being restrained...
- People who go completely crazy when I pull out my banjo and rattle off a banjo tune, hooting and hollering, who would in their private moments wouldn't bother with it.

To me, it's hard when you LOVE something passionately, whether it be us with our steel guitars, or my auld Dad with his bagpipes, and see someone treat it as a trifle. It contains a dash of disrespect, in my mind, toward the considerable base of knowledge and study required to successfully play an instrument.
It's disappointing to be used as a prop for a costume party.

I guess the bottom line is, imho, these people don't care about the music. So, naturally, I figure there must be something wrong with 'em.

Of course, my opinion might be different if I paid the rent with my playing.
-John

Pat Burns · From: Branchville, N.J. USA

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