Album Notes

Texas Legend Al Dean is highlighted in fourteen of his most requested songs in this special package. "Still Kikn" contains some of Al's biggest including "Cotton Eyed Joe" "Resting On My Laurels" "Shackles And Chains" and "Jalisco." Al's writing skills are also highlighted in "One of These Days" "One Heartbeat From The Blues" and "Casting My Lasso".

"Still Kikn" is truly a traditional country music materpiece and is certainly to become a favorite for those fans who love Country Music the way that it should be performed. The traditional sounds of real country music is the sound of Al Dean.

"Mr. Cotton Eyed Joe" Al Dean has become a legend in Texas Country Music. His career started in 1952, when he formed his first professional band in Freer Texas. "The Texas Teenagers" played dances, school functions and benefits all over South Texas. Al began recording in the late 1950's. In 1967, he hit paydirt with an old fiddle tune titled "Cotton Eyed Joe."

"It was a song that I heard as a kid," Al said. "No one had ever heard of the song. It had died. I had a cowboy from South Texas come up to me and ask if I knew "Cotton Eyed Joe." I said I did, but I had not sung it in years. We sat down and taught the guys in my band, note for note, how I remembered the "Cotton Eyed Joe."

The "Cotton Eyed Joe" dance craze started soon thanks to some of Al's followers.

"This guy found a girl to dance with every time that we would play 'Cotton Eyed Joe,'" Al recalls. "He started kicking around on the dance floor and the poor girl walked off in the middle of the dance. Every time we had a show he would ask us to play the song and he would drag a poor girl out on the dance floor and every time she would walk off. It started to spread from there and now everyone does the 'Cotton Eyed Joe.'"

The song would become a standard in bars, clubs and dance halls all over the United States and make the Al Dean and the Allstars a much sought after commodity on the music circuit.

"I got an award in 1987, from the American Music Association of Texas," Al said. "It was for having the most programmed record in the history of the jukebox. Every band I go see that has a fiddle player will come up to me and tell me that they learned to play the fiddle listening to my records."

"Al Dean-Still Kikkn" contains some of the most requested songs throughout Al's tremendous career. From the dance hall favorites to great classic ballads, Al Dean has been a consistent traditional country music entertainer pleasing his fans for over fifty years.