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BS: What is Country?
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Wendy Date: 09 Feb 01 - 04:47 PM More importantly, you can listen to the live webcast... There's a link to it on the schedule (for WKCR's Country Music Fest this weekend). Wendy |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Wendy Date: 09 Feb 01 - 03:13 PM Art - WKCR is in NYC. It's associated with Columbia University. It's 89.9 Wendy |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Ebbie Date: 09 Feb 01 - 02:49 PM Art, I never saw 'Northern Exposure' so I can't really say. I think it was shot in Washington state, though. Or was that 'Twin Peaks'? Which I didn't see either. Yes, Paul Roseland comes here sometimes, and when I see him, I'll definitely tell him HI for you. I haven't heard Tom, Brad and Alice yet, although I do have some Hazel Dickens and Alice CDs and tapes. As I said, I'm really looking forward to the Folk Festival this year. I don't require that every year's guest artists be my favorite performers and genres but it's really grand to have it every couple of years. At least you almost made it to Alaska. Glad to hear you enjoyed the north. ;) I like the notion of knowing where one's child was conceived! Eb |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 09 Feb 01 - 02:09 AM Wendy. That's a fine lineup. What town is that in ? Art |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Wendy Date: 08 Feb 01 - 11:55 PM WKCR is having a "country" music fest this weekend. See the schedule here . |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Jim the Bart Date: 08 Feb 01 - 06:37 PM Geez - I almost forgot to mention Iris Dement. And James Talley. And Guy Clark. And. . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: dick greenhaus Date: 08 Feb 01 - 06:27 PM Just to mntion that all the recordings mentioned are available from CAMSCO Music. (dick@camsco.com) (800548-FOLK). If you order from CAMSCO, please mention Mudcat; that way Mudcat gets a cut. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Jim the Bart Date: 08 Feb 01 - 05:52 PM Boy am I enjoying this. If you're looking for artists that are keeping the tradition of the Louvins, Hank Williams, and such alive there are a few who are doing quite well. I think Dwight Yoakam knows the territory and stays home most of the time. I also think that Marty Stuart knows and respects his roots. Unfortunately, both of these guys have flirted with POPularity and have done some pandering to the least common denominater. Dwight tends to ladle on the twang at times. There are a lot of Austin songwriters who also build on the roots of American rural music and early country. There was a band called the O'Kanes (Keiran Kane and Jamie O'Hara, I believe) who did two terrific recordings together that really capture the close harmony singing of the Everly's or Louvin's. Both discs have been cut-out; I actually bought them for $1.00 each from a bargain bin at a place called Rock Records in Chicago. The best $2.00 I have spent in a long time. Jim Lauderdale and Robert Earl Keen are also excellent. Lauderdale just released an album with Ralph Stanley that is excellent, from what I understand. Art - It's funny you mention Don Gibson. I met him once out in Reno, Nevada. At the time when I was pushing (or pulling) a five piece country band around the country trying to get recorded, we would occasionally get hired to back fading Nashville singers. One such engagement was with Billy Walker (The Tall Texan), who was an Opry regular in the 60's and was the first to record Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away". We were rehearsing at the hotel/casino (waiting for the star to show up), when in walks **Don Gibson**. Big as life. Just like he looked on the album jacket. We introduced ourselves and had a nice pleasant little conversation about the business. He was doing a show up the street, but he promised to try to catch our act if he got the chance (he didn't). He also told us to remember the fans; that they were the ones who determined your success or failure. He was one of the humblest guys I ever met. All I kept thinking was "this is the guy that wrote 'Oh Lonesome Me' and 'I Can't Stop Loving You' in the same afternoon. What a thrill. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 08 Feb 01 - 05:11 PM Ebbie, I love and tape the reruns of Northern Exposure whenever they're good ones. Is that the real Alaska? ;-) We tried to drive there once. Blew 2 of 4 cylinders North of Whitehorse---before they paved that highway. Drove back to Chicago with the other 2 cylinders--mostly on the shoulder. Our kid, conceived in an ovfernigtht snow storm that night (in our VW bus) is now 30 years old. SAY, If you see my old pen pal, PAUL ROSELAND (The Singing Sourdough) up your way be sure to give him our heartiest salutations. His new CD is wonderful. THE GOLD RUSH COLLECTION: 1849-1941. All Alaskan, Yukon and Klondike mining songs. I never heard Paul sound better. And he's got so many great songs. Real literary content there. And yes, "Squaws Along The Yukon" is included.(order Paul's things from ALASKA FOLK MUSIC---P.O. Box 91324-----ANCHORAGE 99509) Also, TOM, BRAD & Alice's CD for Copper Creek BEEN THERE STILL is a great example of modern folks doing the roots music straight on and without any attitude or agenda other than doing it really well and having fun too. You'll enjoy them I'm certain. I like Emmylou's cool even sexy gray hair. But she is one who swallows final consonants to a huge extent. Her diction is so bad (copared to the clarity of a Hank Snow) that I, truly, can't listen to her. I guess that's just me. AN ASIDE: (as if I post anything else): I just found a slide I took of BILL MONROE and IKE EVERLY (the brothers dad) doing a guitar mandolin duet in concert at the University of Chicago Folk Festival about 1965. Another slide is of both mom and dad performing there. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Ebbie Date: 08 Feb 01 - 04:23 PM Here in Juneau there is a weekly (10:00 PM- 1:00 AM) radio show called 'Mule Train' (complete with Rose Maddox's recording as the theme song) that will celebrate its 20th anniversary next month. The host, Don Drew, plays almost entirely only country songs and artists circa 1930's-1960. It's a great opportunity to hear singers and songs you haven't heard for years. He himself has thousands of records and CDs and box sets on his living room shelves, so if he doesn't have the song you request this week, he'll bring it next time. We're lucky to have him. Great guy besides. Art, Alice Gerrard (and Tom and Brad) are going to be the Guest Artists in this spring's Alaska Folk Festival. I'm looking forward to it, to understate just a bit. :) Ebbie |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: cowboypoet Date: 08 Feb 01 - 12:20 PM Art, "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." The closest I can get to your description would be Emmy Lou Harris. The big record companies don't hype her like they do Darth Brooks (the dark side of country with a little 'c') but she sells well and they know it. I've heard her covers of Jimmie's "Miss the Mississippi" and the Louvins' "If I Could Only Win Your Love" on the so-called "country gold" station here. Wonder why the pop oldies stations are always playing Buddy Holly and the Everlys but the the country "oldies" stations never go back more than about ten or fifteen years? |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 08 Feb 01 - 01:11 AM Sorry about the double post. My first attempt timed out and I thought it hadn't been sent--so I sent it again. Art |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 08 Feb 01 - 12:55 AM 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. 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 |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 08 Feb 01 - 12:47 AM 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. Art Thieme 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. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Justa Picker Date: 07 Feb 01 - 05:51 PM (a bit of thread creep but) Dale Evans passed away today. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: cowboypoet Date: 07 Feb 01 - 05:20 PM "I'm wondering...who, among the musicians of the last twenty years or so, do you feel has remained most true to the Folk Roots of Country?" I think an argument could be made for Grandpa Jones. He continued to play clawhammer banjo when nearly everyone else jumped on the Earl Scruggs bandwagon, and a lot of his tunes were traditional, or were based on traditional tunes. ("Whoa, mule, whoa! Whoa, mule, I say! I ain't got time to kiss you now, my mule's a-runnin' away!) The question of what's Country has fascinated me for years. I grew up in a household where almost nothing else was ever played on record or radio, and I liked a lot of it. I still listen to Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams, and I still love the sounds of those guys in the Nudi suits from, say, 1954 to 1963 -- Ray Price, Carl Smith, Faron Young, Webb Pierce, Buck Owens, et al. Now that I think of it, maybe one of the things I liked best was the variety. Nowadays most all the "Country" singers sound alike to me. And it's hard to find more entertaining song titles in any other form of popular music, viz. "My Tears Have Washed 'I Love You' From the Blackboard Of My Heart" by Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys (that's not a challenge, dear 'Catters!). Having said all that, my all-time favorite Country singer and songwriter was Don Gibson. If you ask me "What's Country, as opposed to folk or any other kind of music, and why should I care?" I couldn't tell you in words, but listen to Don Gibson and there's my answer. Whether my answer answers your question is of course for you to decide. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Lonesome EJ Date: 07 Feb 01 - 04:20 PM Art T, don't be shy. What we're talkin' about is what this Forum is all about. I'm wondering...who, among the musicians of the last twenty years or so, do you feel has remained most true to the Folk Roots of Country? |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,petr Date: 07 Feb 01 - 03:33 PM thanks Art, dont think youre pushy at all, I am quite keen on the roots and development of many fiddle styles and traditions so its interesting to learn more. BTW at the last fiddle tunes in Port Townsend the sons of one of the Stripling Bros. played and gave workshops on their Dads and Uncles music from the 30's which had a lot of swing and blues influence and a really great point was made. Many of the young fiddle players are into playing the music in the traditional style as it was played back then but the Stripling Bros. in their day were trying to come up with the most innovative music they could. (just a reflection on tradition and breaking tradition) petr |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,Art Thieme Date: 06 Feb 01 - 11:49 PM Petr, ELDEN SCHAMBLIN was Bob Wills guitar player. I'm sad to hear that he passed away. His accent was always on the bass strings -- much more than the treble strings. It was chorded melody rhythm if I saw him right. One of my favorite songs I ever heard him do was "Back Home Again In Indiana". He did it long after Bob Wills was gone----in the mid-70s I think -- at a festival where I was happy to make a tape of it from the P.A. system speaker I was sitting next to. Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and the Dorseys did urban swing. Out West, still urban but with rural (country) nostalgic tendencies if not actually rural in the strictest sense. Wills and the Lightcrust Doughboys (and others like Milton Brown and a slew of Oklahoma and Texas bands) made Country Swing out of the old-timey stringband music and "the Charlies"---POOLE and CHRISTIAN. As always there were influences galore that were picked up like magnets pulling iron or sponges suckin' water (or whatever). Great music. Could be I'm mellowing in my old age. But I still know what I like best---and that's roots music that I tend to recognize as closer to the real thing----traditional folk music. This is just one fellows few observations. I don't mean to be pushy. That's just how stuff looks to me from here. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 06 Feb 01 - 10:31 PM You can't begin to get that eclectic in any other setting, IMHO.
I'm not sure about that. Over here the folk scene is pretty eclectic and open to any kind of music, a lot of the time. (There are exceptions - my God, are there not exceptions...)I know sessions where anything from Otis Redding to Oasis to Carolan or Bill Monroe would all be quite accepted.
The Country scene over here on the other hand seems a lot more choosy about what is seen as acceptable. That's probably down to a sense among British Country fans that it is not really "theirs", which Americans surely can't have. (And maybe among folkies there is a corresponding sense that "folk" is "ours", so we can define it how we like.)
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,petr Date: 06 Feb 01 - 09:33 PM Art Thieme - some really interesting points, on the development of western swing, I wouldve thought that Bob Wills (whose guitarist - the name escapes me now, but he died less than 2 years ago, was influential with his jazz chords) and bands like the East Texas serenaders were most influential in swing. Followed by texas fiddle players like Benny Tomason and Orville Burns. By the way many Czechs settled in Texas and formed their own brass bands (in the german tradition) and you can really hear that influence in Tex-Mex. Before radio and the gramophone people could date the arrival of a fiddletune in their region, as people didnt travel all that much so when a new fiddle tune came in fiddle players were eager to learn it |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Justa Picker Date: 03 Feb 01 - 11:13 PM Country, is what happened when Merle Travis plugged in. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Art Thieme Date: 03 Feb 01 - 10:45 PM David, Right on I think. Of course, you're correct. My VERY GENERAL idea putting my "Folksong Map" together was to show students how, before radio and the music biz, many (but not all) times people sang songs that told about what they knew---the lives right there and then. With the advent of radio, people could hear songs from all over and the lines blurred and became less distinct. (Other factors like personal traveling had diluted things to a lesser extent even before radio.) My intent was to show the kids how they, maybe, were being a bit manipulated by the big music biz. Where things had been more regional once, now that we have a WORLD-WIDE MUSIC BIZ, the moguls are creating their product for sale EVERYWHERE> That means topical songs about canals & rivers & train wrecks -- like modern songs of crack houses & street gangs -- these might have limited sales potential except to folks living similar lives. POINT BEING: the music biz creates songs on few topics--mostly love & sex maybe. That's all that many people relate to unversally---"the zeal of the loins" as Joe Campbell used to say. What Pete Seeger used to say in those halcion days before he, too (alas) decided everything is folk: "Pop songs are only about moon, June, Croon and spoon. That was Pete's NEW ENGLAND way of saying, "sex". Sure, the songs were morphed---as they always are. The song I got from John Berquist of Eveleth, Minnesota -- "The Pokegama Bear" -- about lumberjacks harrassed by a bear in Minnesota on Pokegama Lake--a very wide part of the Upper Mississippi River------that song was from Irish People but I put it on my map over the state of Minnesota. Pkegama Lake is right there near Grand Rapida, Minnesota---and the song was written as a poem by Frank Hasty in the 1800s for an anniversary of the town of Grand Rapids. I was really honored when my mentor, the great SAM HINTON, used my map idea as a halfway decent way to show the same ideas to students about his own bag of songs. (Sam hinton 's Library of Congress archived songs from March 25th, 1947 are now available on CD. There are 46 tacks (songs) on one CD. Order from Bear Family Records---P.O. Box 1154------D-27727 Hambergen * Germany) Sorry to digress, but I love Sam's music. (And don't ya be lookin' for heavy metal folk in this. Sam's one guy with his instrument. Just about perfect to my ear.) One more thing: The kids would color in the various geographical sections of the maps I handed out to them all and, in the end, would go home with a colorful graphic depiction of the very real regional differences between areas and how folksongs reflected those facts. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: ddw Date: 01 Feb 01 - 06:33 PM Art & Bart Can't directly disagree with a thing you guys say here, but there is a caveat that has to take a little of the definition out of your argument. Americans have always been a mobile lot — always going where the grass is greener. And they took their music with them and picked up influences wherever they went. Bill Monroe took old-timey mountain music down along the Mississippi and picked up some of the blues/jazz chords he heard there to make up bluegrass. Whites and blacks swapped songs and styles between blues and country. Sylvester Weaver, a black Louisville, Ky. blues man, for instance, wrote the original song that became Guitar Boogie (drawing a blank on the Grand Ol' Opry performer who used it as his signature tune). The list goes on and on of works swapped or shared, taken someplace else and made into something entirely different. There are a goodly number of area-specific songs — identifiable by subjects such as logging or whaling or hauling canal boats — but I think it would take a lot more guts than I've got to draw a map and say where things came from. Truth is, I just don't know where they CAME FROM; I could pin down where a lot were COLLECTED and specific places/events referred to in the lyrics, but I think trying to be too specific is a mugs game. cheers, david |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Art Thieme Date: 01 Feb 01 - 05:43 PM Bart,
Is it possible we never met?? We were picking on the same turf from what you say--and for a long while. Do I know you? Maybe we ought to talk. I think we'd agree most o0f the time. That's more than I can say for me and the spouse. ;) Also, folks,
In the beginning of the USA, all or most music was pretty much RURAL (as I said). There being no radios to launch the music away somewhere, the music was divided GEOGRAPHICALLY. Mr. McGrath, As I see it: Every part of the USA was "country" -- but the South had a commercial music form that built around what had been there already -- and naturally. For 2 decades I used printed maps of the USA in school workshops I did all over the country. Instead of place names on these maps, I'd printed the names of FOLKSONGS (from my song list) over the general geographic area from which those songs had sprung. The songs often reflected the actual lives of the people in the various areas. See what I'm saying? Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Jim the Bart Date: 01 Feb 01 - 02:26 PM Sounds like some bad choices by their production team. "How can we seel the boys to the kids?" Country plus Rap can only equal CRAP, we all know that. . .until someone comes along and proves us wrong, that is. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Biskit Date: 01 Feb 01 - 12:00 PM lessee here,Blues with a TWANG,Folk with a steel guitar,Western, with a midwest(Nashville)injection, I dunno,...I play both kinds,an' enjoy listnin't'durned near all of `em.However Alabama's New album sounds like Rap for Rednecks,and I don't understand that at all! |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Jim the Bart Date: 01 Feb 01 - 10:26 AM I think Art was dead on regarding the roots of Country. It is a POP form, though, and as such has been extremely inclusive in its development (the branches, you might say). That is one of the things that I've always enjoyed about playing for true country audiences. Although Country (with a capital "C") radio has a very limited playlist, and an even more limited imagination, the country bars that I have worked in allowed you to play almost anything. I remember once hearing a version of the Stones "Miss You" played with harmonica and steel guitar in a 5:00 AM country lounge on the north side of Chicago, while the couples danced. Followed by "Statue of a Fool" and some Chuck Berry stuff. And no one thought it was the least bit incongruous. You can't begin to get that eclectic in any other setting, IMHO. Of course it hasn't always been like that. The worst times I ever saw were the 70's. I don't know how many times I had some guy with an anchor tatoo and crewcut, cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his T-shirt, look at my long hair and tell me "boy, yew ain't cawntry". Usually, though, if the guy stuck around, by the end of the night we'd be doing shots and talking about Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton (haw-haw). I suppose that's my point: making distinctions - classifying - is an exercise that has little to do with the enjoyment of the music. It can serve a purpose, I suppose, but is always arbitrary. If you ask me "what's the difference between country and folk" you'll have to tell me why you want to make that distinction. If you're trying to figure out how you should dress for that night's gig you'll get one answer; if you're trying to sort out your record collection, you'll get another. And that's my nickels worth. Bart |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,petr Date: 31 Jan 01 - 07:27 PM I think Art Thieme got it. Before country there was oldtime music (folks just called it dance music, mainly fiddle and banjo) and then Bill Monroe took oldtime music sped it and jazzed it up a little and it became bluegrass. Another branch of oldtime became swing fiddle music in Texas and what was later called old time became country, Im sure there were other influences like blues, gospel, cajun, tex-mex, western I believe refers to cowboy music. Thats just my theory. Im not really a country fan myself except for the older stuff. petr/ |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: JedMarum Date: 31 Jan 01 - 09:35 AM Great cartoon, Bill! |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: mkebenn Date: 31 Jan 01 - 07:41 AM I think David hit it, what's the difference if it pleases YOU? Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: kendall Date: 31 Jan 01 - 07:29 AM Discourage in breeding..ban country music |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: ddw Date: 30 Jan 01 - 07:57 PM I have a real hard time drawing the line between country and folk — and between blues and folk, for that matter. Most people consider Hank Williams Jr. country or country-rock. So what do you do with a song like Two Dot, Montana or some his other "story" songs? Or John Anderson's Sometimes An Eagle? And where do you put people like Johnny Cash and June Carter? Merle Haggard? Ian Tyson? Some posters above have tried to define country and/or folk songs by themes, instrumentation and other things. Doesn't work. Same with blues. Listen to the actual songs of Mance Lipscombe, Mississippi John Hurt, Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White and sort through what percentage are actually 12- or 16-bar blues. Bet it's not very high. Is there a difference? There is in my mind, but it has a lot more to do with presentation — style, vocal and instrumental and phrasing — than with any genre of songs or instrumentation or particular singers. If we turn loose of the urge to pigeonhole musical forms, we can enjoy a lot more styles and then we only have to decide what's good music and what isn't. Makes life a lot simpler. cheers, david |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Jim the Bart Date: 29 Jan 01 - 09:51 PM I love Pancho and Lefty because it's mythological. It is such a huge story. There aren't too many people writing those kinds of stories these days - even in "folk" music. So whatever you want to call it, I'm gonna want some more. By the way - reading through the posts again I was afraid that my "dilettante" comment might be construed as a slam on 'catters. That couldn't be further from the truth. I have tremendous respect for the opinions of the members of this forum. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Bill D Date: 29 Jan 01 - 09:48 PM country? Why, that's not hard...I have had a very simple explanation around for years....(the only trick was scanning enough of this old "Shoe" comic to get it for you...) here is country music explained (ya probably gotta scroll a bit) |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: kendall Date: 29 Jan 01 - 08:56 PM I'm also ripped Art..I have an ex friend who doesnt care what happened as long as her choice won. Thats what is so maddening to me! |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 29 Jan 01 - 06:30 PM Barthomew on moving from the Folk scen to the Country scene:
I get the impression that the American Folk scene must be a little bit different from the English or Irish (or God help us, the Scottish) folk scene...
Art, if you want to come across as a strident bad guy, you'll have to be a lot nastier than that. In fact I'd call that previous post goodnatured. Marginally irascible, but esentially goodnatured - irascible in the context meaning "I could get annoyed if I chose to, but I don't choose to." It is bloody annoying too at times, seeing things messed around with by sharks. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Art Thieme Date: 29 Jan 01 - 05:23 PM McGrath, Howdy, PANCHO & LEFTY is a story song--an old type ballad of tough people in dire straits. We like to vicariously identify with these people and think they might've been like what the actual pioneers were like in the USA (and in Australia too). They copped attitudes (and used guns)to make it work one way or another. THE SONG: words, chord structure, tempos -- no world influence except maybe Brit. or Irish. It transports me to other times, other places, away from McDonalds and Burger King. I JUST LIKE IT -- I guess for all the reasons I love actual folk songs. For a select few songs, I can stretch the envelope of definition. ALL THIS SAID, I'm sorry I got so strident in the earlier post. I'm on steroids for the next couple o' weeks to limit pain etc. The things have got me bouncing off the walls. And I really like it. (That's the sad part.) Yeah, I'm truly ticked off about the stealing of the American election. Am angrier ass the days pass--and more frustrated. Never thought I'd see it here. What a thorough eye-opening and me pusing 60. I guess it IS better later than not at all. Anyhow, didn't mean to come on as a bad guy.
Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Jim the Bart Date: 29 Jan 01 - 03:02 PM Last week I was listening to the Smithsonian collection of Country music (my parents gave it to me for Christmas about twenty years ago) and marveling at how much of the early recordings would fit just as easily in a collection of "folk" or "Americana" tunes. Fiddlin' John Carson, Gid Tanner and the Skiller Lickers, The Carter Family, Bill Monroe, the hits keep right on happening. I was given the collection about the time I started learning that it was a lot easier to support yourself in a Country Band than in a Folk Group. I also found out at about that time that you really didn't have to change your artistic sensibilities to make that switch. You just had to change your instrumentation, amplification and willingness to hang out with drunks. At any rate, what became very apparent (to me at least) was that there really isn't an actual dividing line between musical forms at the point that the music is being made. The dividing happens when the music is being sold. And it's done for the benefit of the buyers. The best "Country" music is the result of an attempt at direct communication between a human being and the world. Maybe the writer had to get this idea out; maybe the recording artist found something in the song that spoke for him/her (Willie Nelson does this with tin pan alley stuff all the time). When I analyze any piece of "Country Music", I look for elements that distinguish this type of "musical expression" from mere "product"(the verses rhyme, it sounds like that other song that sold a million, and I can get some-guy-in-a-hat to sing it). When a song is rooted in one person's reality it will work just as well as a folk song as it will a country song. Unfortunately, most of what you hear on the Country radio stations was written for no other reason than to generate cash flow. The problem for a lot of people is listening through the Nashville bits to hear the artistry underneath. Most people would rather shitcan it all then take the time to listen and appreciate a Marty Stuart, or Hal Ketchum, or even Garth Brooks or Brooks & Dunn - when they get it right. But that's their loss. Being from Chicago I know for a fact that there's as much bad, commercial Blues out there as there is bad commercial country. There are as many phonies torturing the same old blues licks as there are hat acts in Nashville. But the dilettantes still rave over any blues or bluegrass hack while sniffing that they just "can't stand country music". When a writer is truly gifted (like Guy Clark, Townes Van Zant, Steve Earle, Keb Mo' or Robert Cray) you are hard pressed to tell which song was written to express a need of the heart and which to pay an electric bill. The good stuff stays on the jukebox for a long time. The best stays in your heart forever. Oops, I'm out of nickels; guess I'll have to yield the soapbox to someone else. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 29 Jan 01 - 02:28 PM Yes, it's surely understood that enormous anmounts of "country" is meretricious rubbish (if you feel like being flattering about it), and the same goes for "rock". Any time that the music industry has been interested then it has managed to produce plenty of "folk" of which the same could be said.
But what is surely more interesting is to focus on the stuff thta we agree is good, and work out why it is that some of it gets classified as folk, and some as country, when it is essentially the same music.
I'm not talking about the old stuff, which is really by now a kind of folk music. (I think the defining characteristic of the folk music culture is that it holds on to pretty well any good music which is discarded by an industry that is obsessed with novelty, and keeps it alive.)
I'm talking about new stuff, which has recognisable roots in the country/American folk shared tradition, but has moved away from it in some ways. Stuff like the Pancho and Lefty song that startd this thread off. We're agreed that it's a good song, but apart from that, what are the criteria by which it should be counted as "folk" rather than country?
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: harpo Date: 29 Jan 01 - 10:53 AM What you need to do is sit in on a round or two at the broken spoke, or the bluebird one night and you'll see that country is all kinds of things. Folk definately but music row would like it to be a money making cross over to rock. It's funny how the roots in nashville is much like the village or woodstock in the 60's and 70's. Pat Alger (Unanswered Prayers)and Randy Vanwarmer (You left me just when I needed you most) both live and write here as do many others. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: English Jon Date: 29 Jan 01 - 09:40 AM In the words of the Blues Brothers: "we play both kinds of music - country AND western" Therefore, Country is any music that isn't Western, so Gamelans, Tibetan nose flutes, shengs, kotos, etc. Maybe that's why so many country players use Japanese guitars? Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: kendall Date: 29 Jan 01 - 09:38 AM Thanks Art, you just saved me a lot of explaining. The closest thing to "country" these days, is Bluegrass. Some years ago, I wrote a protest song for the death of real country music. It's titled "It sure as hell aint country" and, I believe it's in the dt. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: JedMarum Date: 29 Jan 01 - 09:30 AM Country today is what the mostly Nashville machine puts out by formula. The market is absolutely huge, so it is not surprising that the corporate music industry is very eager to tame, drive and predict its behavior. As an artist that fact is both frustrating and promising. There are some real gems among the country pop artists - Vince Gill is genuine artist with a deep love for country music, a gift for writing and razor sharp musicianship. He has written songs that cross all boundaries, though they were delivered through the country medium. Ricky Skaggs, who has flirted with mainstream country for years - is a likewise highly talented artsist, as are Alison Kraus, Emily Harris and many others. Vince is the only one still considered mainstream country - but the others have or have had their place. These are all artist who the folk, blue grass and country worlds can love equally. Formula as it may be, the passion of country music has its roots in Apalachian folk, blue grass and rock. We can shy away or shun the commercialism that drives the country machine, but there are some genuine, gifted and dedicated artists working in that world producing some wonderful music. After accepting a recent offer, I hope to become one of them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: mkebenn Date: 29 Jan 01 - 06:14 AM Well said, Art{no surprise here}, but then the Carter Family was as country as it got, and wouldn't most pre forty year old 'catters consider them folk? Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Art Thieme Date: 29 Jan 01 - 12:27 AM The basic roots aspects of early country can best be found and heard in what is today called old-timey stringband music. This was RURAL music and reflected the closeness of people (folks) with the land and the basics of life -- like the little and big dramas of life --- the tales and humor and the tragedy and pathos --- what it takes to live with nature and srespect it while using it and replenishing it. Then things go WRONG and the base and perversiveness that we people are capable of can be found in the "country" songs. They came from the rural countryside -- and were therefore called COUNTRY MUSIC when a liked and pleasant form of music, alas, bagan to be sold to the world. As time often does, song # 1 has a way of falling to song # 3---and then to # 40. The corporate moguls get scared then---toss out the baby with the washwater---and then create a music that sounds like rock music and calls it country music--simply because the can do it. (It's like the Supreme Court picking the president here in the U.S.A.) Country Music was, and still is for many of us, rural and close to the earth music. THE YOUTH simply do not know any better. Then they buy up the shit and believe that it is gold and platinum simply because the honchos that sell it to them tell them that it's a valuable commodity. It makes me sick. Gives me true contemt for the corporate morons---just like I have contempt for the Supreme Court of the USA now. ART THIEME |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 28 Jan 01 - 06:55 PM I suppose the truth is, Country is a label attached initially to certain styles of American traditional music, and then by extension to some of the music that has developed from it.
And the same can be said of American folk music.
So the roots are the same, which means that there is a lot of music to which either label can be applied.
But what about the music that has developed along the two lines? Clearly there's an enormous amount of undisputable crap put out by the Country Music industry, but it's not as simple as that, because there's a great deal which is far from crap, and not just among the music that has stayed close to its roots.
Some people seem to want to use quality as a way of decding which box to put people in. So Garth Brooks goes in the country box, and Steve Earle in the folk box. But then if you do that does it mean that Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson should be in the folk box too, and taken out of the country box? It doesn't seem the right approach somehow.
Then you get someone like Nanci Griffiths, who gets transferred by the music business from country to folk, seemingly on political grounds rather than for any musical reasons.
It's all very confusing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: GUEST,mkebenn@work Date: 28 Jan 01 - 04:45 PM When I was a kid{oh so long..} there was country and western music. Don't hear the term anymore. I always looked at arrangment and instrumentaion as much as anything in trying to make the distinction here. As Mick said, "Buffalo Skinners" is folk..direct story line, sparse accomp, while "Silver Wings" is country{lush backup}. To muddy the water further, I consider "El Paso", "Big Iron", "Ghost Riders", etal western, not country. Mike Bennett |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 28 Jan 01 - 12:53 PM Some genius said, "Country music is rock music in a ten-gallon hat." Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: What is Country? From: Big Mick Date: 28 Jan 01 - 12:36 PM I have been struggling with this since Kevin started it, and used my words on me(I love it-----leave it to another Irishman)...........caused me to think a little more in depth about it. I guess when I just flipped those out there I was referring to the fact that it is a great yarn, and to me that is the hallmark of folk over what is/was termed Country music. I don't think of most of what is called country music today as country as much as it is pop music. I would think of traditional country music (20th century US) as a sort of immediate music with many themes, but not much plot developement i.e. this guy pissed me off in the bar and I whipped him, or "I fell hard for my baby, and she left me high and dry". Bear in mind this is a very generalized comment. I would then think of folk music more in terms of Buffalo Skinners where classic bardic techniques of plot developement/morality lessons are worked in. Or a series of songs such as the soldier and maid, or Gypsy Davy scenarios are acted out. It seems to me that folk as opposed to trad country will give you many layers for interpretation and/or application. This song seems to be that way. While I wouldn't put it in the class of great folksongs to be, it certainly is a very good one. What was country music had many ancestors, such as country blues, and negro spirituals. Today's "country" music seems, for me at least, to lack any homage to those types of themes, and seems to owe more to the pop genre and sometimes even "bubblegum" styles. Mick |
