Does anyone wonder why we need yet another version of Mr. Sandman? I just finished ordering from my February Hanhurst tape, and it seems like more and more, I already have the songs on the tape. Maybe there’s a 10 year cycle, and all the (good) songs get redone once a decade.

Here are the records I ordered:

• LBJ/Aries 19 (GMP 504): I like the honky-tonk feel of these old tunes.
• Do Wacka Do (Royal 1005): I’ll probably use this for patter. It’s got that Royal sound, that always seems to be a hit with the dancers.
• Rasputin (ABC 12): I bought a Boney M CD this year because a European caller mentioned calling to their music (I still am having a hard time imagining being able to be heard over the vocals…) and because a square dancer told me how much she liked listening to Mary’s Boy Child on the radio. I loved the song Rasputin…and then I found out that ABC was releasing a singing call version. So I’ve been waiting ever since. The segment on the tape didn’t disappoint, and I’m looking forward to using the record.
• Blue Bayou (GMP 929): I’ve always liked this song, ever since I first heard Linda Ronstadt do it, and then heard Roy Orbison’s original. But it has a helluva range and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to carry it off or not. Global Music usually does a good job with the music.
• Mr McGoo/So Glad (MR 5019): A two-sided patter. I tend to like highly melodic interesting patter records. These are not. But I think they’ll work for my daytime dancers, who tend to prefer heavy rhythm without a lot of melody, at least on the patter.
• Hotel California (S2K 2002): I think I’ll end up buying all Jack O’Leary’s S2K releases, if only to encourage record producers to give us more modern sounding music. Yes, I got the Backstreet Boys one (I had to look up the song on the web to even know who the original artists were…that’s how out of it I am). At least with Hotel California, I remember the original song by the Eagles. And I like the line, “some dance to remember, some dance to forget”.
• Palisades Park (SSR 118): My one golden oldie, in both senses of the term…it’s an old square dance release, and it’s a tune from the fabulous early ’60’s.

That’s it. I considered a few of the other patters (there were a lot on this tape). I considered the Jack Lasry rerelease, if only because when I first started learning to call, I spent a lot of time listening to his review records for Mainstream and Plus. I considered the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy rerelease, but I already have a version, and both versions have the problem of figuring out how to slow down a 170 bpm original to 128 bpm square dance speed.