BS: What is Country?

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 01 - 09:47 AM

Good music never dies. It just gets played in different situations, and called folk.

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 28 Jan 01 - 09:41 AM

(dick greenhaus again) I was not using "commercial" as a perjorative. Just being descriptive. "Country" didn't exist before commercial recordings and radio. BTW- I don't see how Panch or Lefty really fits either country or folk. Which is not to say that I don't like it.

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: Banjer
Date: 28 Jan 01 - 08:05 AM

I believe LEJ said it the way I would have. AS for the direct answer to the question, "What is Country"? Country, the 'country music' I grew up with, is DEAD!

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: zander (inactive)
Date: 28 Jan 01 - 03:48 AM

I think a big difference is that folk songs were never written for the intention of making money. This was also true of ' country ' music once, in fact way back then it was closer to folk music. Now it's just ' pop '. Cheers, Dave

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 09:41 PM

Good post there Leej. Sometimes as I have watched some special or another on the "Opry" I get a feeling that what is now called "Country" is played on stage at the Grand Ole Opry and the roots/folky stuff is being jammed back in the dressing rooms.

Glad to see Dolly doing some of her roots and having it sell.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: GUEST,LEJ
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 08:50 PM

Interesting that Country has been painted as that worst of all evils, Commercial, while Folk struggles along aloof to that accusation. Something tells me that if Garth Brooks writes a great song, its going to be classed as Country regardless. If Steve Earle writes a beauty, its going to be considered Folk, unless it gets adopted by the Nashville Set (when Hell freezes). I think Country started as roots music, but has gradually been pop-ified until it bears almost no resemblance to the music that Jimmie Rodgers,Patsy Cline, the Carters, Hank, Johnny and Merle pioneered. Like Pop Rock, and the Singer/Songwriter Pop bodies of music, it still has the potential of giving birth to songs that merit entry into the annals of our collective consciousness as true Folk Music, though.

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 08:24 PM

plain folks mixed into an industrialized economy and yearning for a less sophisticated way of being.

That sopunds like most folkies I know.

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 08:11 PM

Well, I'd speculate that there is a lot of semantic overlap; but the "Country" genre in these parts is focused on commercially viable sentimental songs about the angst of plain folks mixed into an industrialized economy and yearning for a less sophisticated way of being. Archetypes include follks who love pickup trucks, lose their gals through alcohol abuse, love their dogs, have stubborn, simple beliefs about basic definitons of what is moral and what is not, patriotic, blunt, still know how to hunt and trap, belief in cowboy myths, etc. Banditry doesn't usually figure in it. Funny, but as an example, "El Paso" qualifies in my mind as "Country" but "Pancho and Lefty" could have died in obscurity as a folk ballad except for dear ol' Willie. The reality it points at is perhaps a little raw and factual (even if it fictional in itself) to meet the smarmy criteria of "Country".

A gray and fuzzy line, certainly.

A

Subject: RE: BS: What is Country?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 08:04 PM

(dick greenhaus) Country started out as commercial folk. It's been described as music that comes from the heart and is sung through the nose.

I have no idea what today's country music is.

Subject: What is Country?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 07:59 PM

In another thread (about Oancho and Lefty) Big Mick commented on the song I agree that it is more of a "folk" song than it is a "country". And it set me wondering what the difference is.

Maybe there've been threads about it in the past, but I've missed them. It strikes me that there's so much overlap that a lot of the time there's no musical way of saying whther something belongs in one category or another - and that the distinction is likely to be more about the politics involved than anything. If singera are Rightish, they tend to count as Country, if they're Leftish (in American terms) they tends to count as Folk. But then you have someone like Steve Earle.

But then you get tunes. And you get people playing together...