My small experience on 'Dancing with the Stars' allowed me to slowly appreciate the Waltz and Viennese Waltz, but to see it in Vienna is something much different.
I love Viennese waltzes and polkas, and especially ceilidhs and old-fashioned formation dancing.
What really swings is the music of the United States, Cuba, the Caribbean and vicinity, and, of course, Brazil. The rest is all waltzes.
I don't give a damn about "The Missouri Waltz" but I can't say it out loud because it's the song of Missouri. It's as bad as "The Star-Spangled Banner" so far as music is concerned.
Among the numerous pleasures of Vienna the hotel evenings are famous. During supper Strauss or Lanner play waltzes...After every waltz they get huge applause; and if they play a Quodlibet, or jumble of opera, song and dance, the hearers are so overjoyed that they don't know what to do with themselves. It shows the corrupt taste of the Viennese public.
Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed.
I was singing a lot of waltzes. And I was with Jerry Kennedy, my producer, and he was playing me some songs, and he said, hey, I want to play you this song that I'm going to get Jackie Ward to record.
I was writing waltzes at a time when the most popular thing was Shania Twain and the very pop edge of country. I didn't really know how to do much of that.
I'm not too fond of changing things into waltzes, but sometimes that works.
It is a real piece of art if you can make a waltz sound like it is the easiest piece of music to play, because it's really not.
Where would I be without Johann Strauss's beautiful 'Blue Danube?' Without this piece of music I wouldn't be the man I am today. It's a tune that brings out the emotion in everyone and makes them want to waltz.
