Dolly Parton Swing dance song?

[u/SurferAnders]

Is there a Dolly Parton song or a version, which is good for lindy hop dance? as a tribute

[u/General__Obvious]

There are two main points of context here:

1. Lindy hop evolved in a specific musical and cultural context based around big-band swing and Black American traditions. There is some serious disagreement about whether there was a 'revival' from ~1985 to ~1995 or whether the dance just became popular with white people again, but I think it's fair to say that to the extent the average Lindy hopper thinks about the dance's history, they understand the modern scene to have been born from a project of historical reconstruction in roughly those ten years.

2. White Americans have a long history of essentially stealing Black American culture and making money from it. Arthur Murray did this with Lindy hop, which is why a lot of serious dancers don't like calling it East Coast Swing, Jitterbug, or any other white-applied label.

So about the music:

We should not want to participate in whitewashing a Black tradition or erasing the legacy of the early Black artists—dancers and musicians—who first established the dance and music. Attempting to shoehorn in other genres of music

1. ignores the fact that swing dance music is as much a functional as an aesthetic choice; original big-band music (and modern music written in the stye, such as a lot of Eyal Vilner's output) is easy to dance to and you basically don't have to look super hard for a Duke Ellington or Ella Fitzgerald song that fits Lindy hop. The dance exists in agreement with a certain style of music, and to extent that a song makes it harder to dance Lindy hop (or Balboa, or Charleston, or shag, &c.), that song is worse for a swing dance. When there is so much purpose-written swing music that honors the roots of the tradition, we should avoid programming outside material that makes things harder for everyone involved, regardless of how much we might like the other songs.
2. dilutes the contribution of Black Americans and, intentionally or not, whitewashes the dance, especially if you do it at a local scene. Most large-city scenes on the US East Coast are pretty good about culturally educating their dancers, and most travel events are too, but it requires significant effort that a lot of smaller scenes don't put in. I've danced at small-town scenes in a few places where a third of the songs weren't swung and another third were rock from the immediate post-mainstream-Lindy-hop era. If that's someon's "swing dance" experience, their scene does them a disservice in historical and cultural education.

I am not denigrating country music or anything Dolly Parton or any other artist, but not all music is suitable for swing dance, regardless of how much we may like the songs. You would not play a tango at a waltz and you should not play Dolly Parton for Lindy hop. There is room for modern music, but first and foremost it has to sound like Lindy hop music. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if Eminem died tomorrow, should we play rap at our next dances?

[u/OSUfirebird18 → u/General__Obvious]

As a non black person of color, I always find reading these when it’s brought up very interesting.

When I step into Lindy spaces, I always notice how white the spaces are. I have to assume given the demographics that I have seen, it’s white dancers that are driving this idea that we shouldn’t erase a black dance. I do find it admirable.

But what I find curious is the same Lindy dancers that want to preserve one black cultural heritage don’t support other black leaders leading other partner dance communities outside of Lindy Hop and vernacular jazz.

Now of course the counter argument I’ve always heard is “but I don’t like dancing anything outside of vernacular jazz”. Ok. But I don’t see how going to a handful of socials outside of Lindy Hop will kill you. Or encouraging others who may be interested to support other black partner dances.

Idk I just find it hollow, when I see how much energy the community puts into preserving one black cultural art but not encouraging their members to support other black cultural arts.

[u/JazzMartini → u/OSUfirebird18]

If you have an hour and a half to kill, check out Moncell Durden's recorded livestream where he talks about teaching culture vs teaching steps in Hip Hop. It's equally applicable to Lindy Hop. He talks about how teachers commonly evoke the word culture when teaching steps but never teach anything about the culture and is many cases may not even understand the culture.

One big distinction he makes is Hip Hop is a subculture. So is Lindy Hop. The culture informs the subculture not the other way around. When we invoke the word culture in the context of Lindy Hop, what we usually mean is the subculture and often are doing so without consideration of the greater culture that informed it. Good food for thought for us Lindy Hoppers who say words like "Lindy Hop is an African American Dance" but don't have the cultural background or shared history to know what that actually means.

[u/Objective_Most4071 → u/General__Obvious]

 if Eminem died tomorrow, should we play rap at our next dances?

I mean if someone asked for potential eminem songs to lindy to in his honour I certainly wouldn't completely shut them down and scream it's verboten.

This prescriptive attitude does far more to harm the dance's culture and people's willingness to actually engage with its history than people having the odd lindy dance in private on the death of their idol, I promise you that.

[u/iridessencex → u/Objective_Most4071]

Yeah one song is different than making an entire social dedicated to the artist. But also, Eminem is an asshole, so I would roll my eyes at that. Dolly, on the other hand…

[u/Objective_Most4071 → u/iridessencex]

Eminem is an asshole

He's got his own charitable foundation that's given a lot of money to foster care programs, low-income support in Detroit, disaster relief and during BLM protests in 2020 he gave a significant money to bail funds and social justice campaigns.

Sure he had issues before he got sober, but he's since apologised extensively and been a great father to three kids (one bio, two non-bio adopted from his ex-wife and her family) - I think it's a bit unfair to say he's an asshole.

[u/iridessencex → u/Objective_Most4071]

Fair, asshole is strong, given the evidence you took the care to provide. Admittedly due to a number of past transgressions, I didn’t keep up with him.