Robert Earl Keen – No Kinda Dancer
Yellow Sweatshirt Review
Do you have a favorite sweatshirt that you will never give up, no matter how old and ratty it gets? If you answered yes, chances are you’re a guy. Women don’t understand this phenomenon. Much in the same way us men will never understand why women flock to designer jeans and shoes, they will never understand our love affair with the Sweatshirt. So here’s my story, one-man… one sweatshirt… one heart… a million and one stories. You might want to keep a hanky on hand; this story is a tearjerker. It all started 18 years ago (yes ladies, you read that right, 18 years ago) on a cold wintery day. My aunt gave me this very cool golden yellow sweatshirt for a Christmas present. In it’s infancy it was worn to school on several occasions. By my senior year it had been upgraded to being worn during tennis practice and meets. (Yes, I went out for tennis, thank you very much. More tennis stories in later reviews) it was at one of these practices where it received its first rip. We had to run around the courts one time for a warm-up. (Oh the humanity, we’d have to run around the court, you’ll wear us out coach, how can we lob balls at you from the other courts if we’re tired.) But this hole in the right arm didn’t ruin the shirt; it only gave it more character. Kinda like a scar makes for a cool story, so does a hole on a sweatshirt. I know, a tennis scar isn’t cool, but in my junior and senior high athletic career, I only went to the emergency room once, and it wasn’t from a football injury, it was to get stitches from a tennis practice incident. So, for all you overprotective mothers out there, (and I have it on good authority that we have overprotective mothers who read this web site) football is safer than tennis, at least it was in my experience.
The college years is when old yeller really came into it’s own. I’d wear it to bars, practices, classes, (I always thought that the ECON girl would like it, I guess she didn’t, oh well) road trips, a trip to Wal-Mart and any other special occasion you could think of. One summer when I was back at home, I pulled it out of the trash because mom had thrown it away. After college it has become a little frayed around the edges, but it’s still up for a trip out of the house. It was a regular at the Will Rogers Saloon in Stillwater. Everyone there loved it. Now, I only pull it out for the most special of occasions. It only has so many wears left in it so I have to be picky as to when I pull it out. But whenever I do put it on, it feels comfortable and my day is automatically upgraded to a better day.
It’s in the same vein as the comfortable sweatshirt; I’m going to start a series of reviews based on the yellow sweatshirt concept. These are CD’s that have a little age on them, but they’ll still upgrade your day when you put them in. These will be CD’s that are at least 5 years old, but many will be older than that. The first of the “Yellow Sweatshirt Reviews” is No Kinda Dancer from Robert Earl Keen, circa 1984. I’ve seen reports that this CD was made for only $4,500. If true, it’s the best deal ever in the history of mankind. My only gripe, and an ever so small one at that, is there’s no Rich Brotherton on the CD. I’m guessing they didn’t know each other yet, but still, that’s no excuse. Well, maybe it is. Funny Rich Brotherton story, we were at calf fry one year where REK and the boys were opening for Chris Ledoux. Rich came out to tune his guitars and some of us were yelling “RICH,” “RICH, YOU ROCK,” “WOOHOO, RICH,” “RICH, WE LOVE YOU,” and other such phrases. He just stood there tuning his guitar while he shook his head. I’m sure he went back to the bus and told Mr. Keen that there was some crazy guys stage right. And he would’ve been right. They put on a great show by the way. But anyway, enough of the tangent story, back to the review. Although his first CD, it has many classics that we’ve all come to love from our favorite Bandera resident. Songs like No Kinda Dancer, The Front Porch Song, Swervin’ in My Lane, Cristabell, Rolling By and The Armadillo Jackal. This last song can be heard whenever Van and Jory get together and play. If you’ve read my Bottle Rockets Live review, you know how I feel about people that only know an artist from their Live CD. This is your chance to hear The Front Porch Song in its original form. It is more closely related to Lyle Lovett’s version than his Live version. One of my favorites is Between Hello and Goodbye.
I wonder about the words we’ve wasted
I wonder about the things you say to make me start to cry
And I wonder about the time we’ve forsaken
Somewhere between our first hello and last goodnight
I guess I’ve always liked this CD. I even like the title. After all, I’m definitely no kinda dancer. The girl from the Blind Date Blues song or any of the countless girls that had to wear a cast for 4-6 weeks after dancing with me will attest to that fact. That’s why I love waltz’s, I wish I could waltz, but I have a hard time counting to two on two-step, there’s no way I could count to three while dancing. So I’m a fan of Young Lovers Waltz, even though I probably won’t be able to ever dance to it.
So what have we learned today:
- We (sometimes I say we like I have a frog sitting on my shoulder) now have a brand new segment of CD reviews entitled the “Yellow Sweatshirt Reviews”
- REK has been putting out 22+ years of great music
- A yellow sweatshirt can be worn to any occasion
- And I’m not doing this just because I’m cheap and don’t want to buy a new CD to review, but rather that I think some of you might enjoy some classics (and I’m cheap)
I’ll give this CD 4 and a half out of 5 broken toes caused by dancing mishaps.
“Your ma & me don’t travel well in rain”