I like this thread. It's fun being here. I REALIZED only after reading this thread again that we might have a semantic problem with the word country. The word has several meanings even in the U.S.A. It must be confusing to folks elsewhere.

To rehash a bit:

"Country", as I metioned, means rural lands---where the corn and the cotten is grown with rolling highways etc. That's where the old-timey music came from -- mostly in the south U.S.-- after coming from Ireland and the the British Isles. "a country", of course, is a political entity with boders etc. that has NOTHING to do with the American concept of ruralness or urbanity or packaged music for sale. We all live in a country. COUNTRY MUSIC is a business attempt to sell that roots based music to all of us. (Recently, when the Library Of Congress issued Steve Wade's excellent compilation CD of collected examples from the L.of C. archived folk material, NOBODY on any mainstream country music station would even consider playing it. To them, country only means Garth etc now. To me, that's sad---and a big loss.

For a good time (old-timey music wise) these folks get back to those rural roots.

OLD TIME HERALD is a great old-timey magazine edited by Alice Girrard and a fine staff. It's full of historical articles on old-time musicians as well as the folks they feel are carrying on the traditions and styles that are framed by their definitions. Sometimes I do wish they were just a bit more inclusive (so I could've had a nice review of my '98 CD from them) but they were smart not to review it 'cause, if they had they would've pretty much had to pan it as too revivalist I guess----so I'm glad they chose to table it. Still, I highly admire their work and subscribe to their good magazine.----PO BOX 51812----Durham, NC 27707-----919-402-8495 www.mindspring.com/~oth

Lonesome EJ,------I don't think you want a list of old-timey stringbands from me here. I haven't heard much from Nashville that hits me recently though. If songs are topical at all they disappoint me when I hear 'em. But I live pretty much 100 years behind the times. I like it there. And that's the music I'm familiar with 'cause, at my age, I don't want to waste my time. I do know I'm missing stuff. But I can't begin to afford, on disability now, to check out and pay for CDs I'll wind up tossing away to the Salvation Army.

But a good place to hear about alternative country (much closer to the roots verbally and musically I think) is right here:

www.well.com/user/cline/twangin.html

The above is the website for TWANGIN" COUNTRY MUSIC. Many of these folks are a treat to hear. VERY FEW are ever allowed on any maintream mod country stations or lists. I like a ton of 'em even if I can't afford them either.

JODY STECHER and TIM O'BRIEN are two of my favorites. Both are brilliant singers. Tim reminds me of nobody else---yet the roots are in everything he does---his all Dylan CD---everything he does. Mr. Stecher is just one of those typical run-of-the mill GENIUSES that stand so far above that he's probably dizzy from lack o' oxygen-----and that's all there is to it.

Cowboypoet-------I agree with you about Grandpa. In '64 or so we brought him to Chicago for a concert and, when he showed up early, he sat down with me and taught me to leap over a frailing plateau I was stuck on. I'll never forget him for that. Still, I always thought it very sad that in order to be heard at all, Grandpa and Uncle Dave Macon and especially Stringbean (Dave Akeman) had to present themselves as, if not actual morons, at least colossal clowns and buffoons. The music was wonderful but we came a long way in the 1960s when Roscoe Holcomb and Clarence Ashley and Hobart Smith and Frank Proffitt and Gus Cannon could sit down on stages in campus concert halls with 1000 folks attending---folks who listened intently to dignified mountaineers often in shirts and ties. (It was us urban kids that put on the workshirts 3rd-hand clothes and boots with pebbles in 'em so we might get some semblance of the pain that Woody Guthrie had so, then, maybe, we might write songs like him). I'll never forget being lucky enough to be there to hang with the greats at the University of Chicago Festival. What a ride it's that was-----sharing a bottle of Champagne with Como, Mississippi's blues giant Fred McDowell. He did do a fine set right after...

Now-a-days I enjoy some of the FREIGHT HOPPERS although I do wish they'd slow down. Music needs "spaces" as well as sound. Since Cary Fridley left the F.Hoppers I've not heard them, but I do suspect her going was a big loss for them.

Here's a question for you good peopole:

Is there anyone modern and on the radio and hyped by the big companies doing things like Hank Snow's train stuff & Jimmie Rodgers style songs or Blue Sky Boys tight harmony---or even the Louvin Brothers--maybe with more modern topics other than sensuality, sex and drugs? I don't mean isolated songs. I'm thinking of whole music careers starting out, now, in a rootsy-sounding veign and style.
Ricky Scaggs sure has had his problems bucking the system and trying to do the bluegrass he loves.

Again, I tend to sound more certain or strident than is my intent many times in posts. I don't want to do that. These are just off-the-top-of-my head spewings based on some maybe and maybe not accurate observations.

Art Thieme