was recorded in one marathon evening session, without any overdubbing, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles, with the band's manager and owner of the Ash Grove folk club, Ed Pearl, co-producing with Richard Bock.

[1][3] Bock also originated the album's title, which is a play on composer Aaron Copland's popular orchestral suite, Appalachian Spring, as well as a reference to how he felt the group's music "swung".

Author Christopher Hjort has noted that, with the release of Appalachian Swing!, the Kentucky Colonels came to be considered by fans and critics as one of the best bluegrass groups in the United States by the end of 1964.

[4] A number of authors have noted that the Colonels' virtuoso guitarist Clarence White permanently expanded the language of bluegrass guitar with his flatpicking style on Appalachian Swing!

It was first reissued in 1974 in the United Kingdom under the title of Kentucky Colonels, with both sides of the band's non-album, 1965 single "Ballad of Farmer Brown" b/w "For Lovin' Me" included as bonus tracks.