Originally Posted By: floyd jane

(So what became of Swing City? Seemed like one heck of a band! - at a time when no one was doing that...)


Thanks, it was a heck of a lot of fun doing that record.

So there never actually was a "Swing City". The label I was signed to, Decca, wanted a band and so they created one - me. The entire EP was a bunch of song demos I had done that were upgraded to masters. They actually just wanted it to be a band called "Swing City" but I balked, because it was just me and a bunch of studio musicians. So we compromised and called it "Roger Brown & Swing City". I then had to go actually hire a bunch of guys to be the road band - the whole thing had sort of a Monkees-ish feel to it, in that people thought the road guys played on the record when in fact it was all studio guys, and they just copied their parts.

The EP got really good critical response, which of course means it had to be a commercial disaster. The country radio format at that time (1996) wasn't going to play anything that radically different, so it fizzled out pretty quickly. I was, and am, very proud of it, but I just went back to writing songs like I had for the 13 years prior to its release. I did put out a full album on an indy label in 2000 called "Rodeo Boogie", I think there are still copies or at least youtube videos of some of that stuff out there. Both are long since out of print.

Appreciate your kind words and interest in that part of my past from a couple of decades ago.
Cheers,
Roger

http://www.rogerbrownsongs.com
http://www.nashvillesongwriters.com/roger-brown