Some may be surprised, others may not, but I’ve been  a country music fan for a long long time and have a vast collection of it on vinyl, CD’s and MP3’s.  Not just the modern crossover country artists like Keith Urban but the real original country and especially the western artists. Give me a pedal steel guitar any day over a drum machine! So here’s some new stuff with a nod to the past from some artiists you may not have come across.  Starting off with a track from Michaela Anne.

Next up an amusing little number from Texan Vincent Neil Emerson.

And finally here’s a re-working of a track that may be known to some line dancers – Kacey Musgraves along with Brooks & Dunn updating their classic “Neon Moon”.

For many a year, I think I taught more of Robbie’s dances than anyone else’s. He had a knack of picking decent, usually mainstream music and coming up with a good dance that had enough to make it interesting without being too taxing to teach or learn.

Robbie was our guest instructor when we organised our first line dance social with a choreographer at Ancaster High School in Lincoln back in June 2002, – he taught his latest dance Rock n Roll Bride. We’ve been going to his own socials since 1999 and had numerous weekends away with him around the country from Hemsby to Harrogate. The photo below was taken many years ago at an event in Glasgow organised by the late Lizzie Clarke. We also attended his classes at both West Bridgford and Beeston – I even ended covering his Beeston class on one occasion.

I can’t begin to count the number of dances of his that I’ve enjoyed, or the number of fun times we’ve had at the various line dance weekends where he’s taught. But if he didn’t like something, such as the latest must-do dance or a certain track of music, he’d let you know in no uncertain terms! He must have got fed up with people pestering him for the latest dance scripts and I tried not to do it too often. He would sometimes help me out on the odd occasion by letting me have a pre-release sheet when I was particularly struggling to find something new to teach that I really liked.

He will be missed by people all over the country and indeed the world, but especially by people in the East Midlands who attended his classes, socials and his own line dance weekends. Our thoughts are with his partner, Tony, and Robbie’s family at this difficult time.

17.12.19 Nothing new taught tonight, it was part class, part social but we danced a lot!

Danced tonight: Playboys, Just A Phase, Wandering Hearts, Small Town Summer, Jessie, Jealousy, We Are Dynamite, Go West, She Ain’t Me, Second Hand Heart, You Gotta Work, Castles, All I Am Is You, Stack It Up, Mad Crazy Love, Water On The Flames, Darling That’s The Truth, Thousand Times, Nothing But You, All I Need To Know, In Control, Life Without You, In Comes The Night, We’ll Be Dancing, Feel The Same, Faithful Soul, Moves, Hearts On Fire, My Angel & Me, Willpower, Everything I Have, Hey Now, My Heart Is Gone, Ribbon Of Highway (Blake Shelton – Two Step Round The Christmas Tree), Rumba Ride (George Strait- Christmas Cookies) and Just A Kiss (Wham – Last Christmas).

10.12.2019 WE ARE DYNAMITE (Alison Biggs & Peter Metelnick) This was my last teach, not just of this year but of the decade! Didn’t want anything too taxing and this proved fairly easy to pick up with just one slightly sticky bit that took slightly longer to get used to. I think it was quite a hit with the class.

We Are Dynamite step sheet

Also danced tonight: Dance On My Island, Pretend, You & Me Together, Life Without You, Thousand Times, Lonely Blues, Everything I Have, Darling That’s The Truth, In Comes The Night, Moves, Gone West, Hey Now, Young Love, My Heart Is Gone, Willpower, Stack It Up, Castles, Faithful Soul, Feel The Same, and You Gotta Work.

03.12.2019 DARLING THAT’S THE TRUTH (Gary O Reilly) Great track and the dance isn’t too hard. Just what you need at this time of year! 2 restarts and 1 tag but everyone seemed to enjoy it. Lots teaching it round here, in fact some at my class were learning it for the third time in just two days.

Darling That’s The Truth step sheet

Also danced tonight: Damn, Soul Shake, Selfish, Saluti, She Ain’t Me, Shot Of Tequila, My Heart Is Gone, Up In The Air, Feel the Same, Faithful Soul, I Am Giant, 3 To Tango, Legend, I Guess, Everything I Have, Stack It Up, Replay, Castles, You Gotta Work, Hey Now and Moves.

Continue reading 2019 Dances Taught →

On Tuesday 17th December it will be slightly more of a social night before the Christmas & New Year break. I know a few are doing other things that night but if you can make it, I’ll be there.  I won’t be teaching a new dance but will recap the ones taught from the previous few weeks and will also be playing as many of the requests that I’ve had from the class as I can fit in. Its free of charge and everyone is welcome.

There won’t be a class on the 24th or 31st December so the first class of 2020 will be on January 7th. Wow 2020 – I can’t believe it!

Dances to Olly Murs music always do down well at my class so looking forward to the release  of Karl-Harry Winson’s new 64 count intermediate dance called Feel The Same to this track.

Neville Fitzgerald and Julie Harris have a new nightclub two-step to the Gavin James track “Always”. You can see Julie dancing it here or listen to the track here. They’ve also got a waltz on the way called Out of Love and a West Coast to this track from Guy Sebastian called Before I Go that looks pretty smooth. this is another 64 count intermediate level dance.

Maggie Gallagher and Gary O’Reilly have teamed up again to write a dance to the new song from Westlife called Better Man. Video below.