"New Spanish Two Step" is a
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance ...
standard based on a traditional fiddle tune, "Spanish Two Step".
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although S ...
recorded the latter on September 23, 1935, and released it on
Vocalion
Vocalion Records is an American record company and label.
History
The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...
03230 in 1936. Ten years later, Wills and
Tommy Duncan added lyrics and recorded it again on April 25, 1945, releasing it on
Columbia
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...
36966 in April 1946 as "New Spanish Two Step". It stayed on the charts for 23 weeks, reaching number one on the Folk-Jukebox chart for 16 weeks.
[Whitburn, ''The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits'', p. 392.] Both versions were one of the band's signature songs.
Wills and his vocalist,
Tommy Duncan, added lyrics to reflect the title:
The "b" side, "
Roly Poly", was also a big hit, reaching number three.
See also
*
Billboard Most-Played Folk Records of 1946
References
Bibliography
*McWhorter, Frankie. ''Cowboy Fiddler in Bob Wills' Band''. University of North Texas Press, 1997.
Western swing songs
1946 songs
Billboard Hot Country Songs number-one singles of the year
Songs written by Bob Wills
Songs written by Tommy Duncan
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