Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Shaw on March 27, 2011 at 9:01pm

I can't stand listening to current country radio. A couple of decades ago I was listening to a local (Toronto) C&W station and the deejay said he'd recently heard the best country record ever ... Grievous Angel by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris ... but he would be fined $25 because it wasn't on the station's playlist. So all he did was mention it. He died a few years later and one of his fellow deejays said he was going to pay the fine to play Dave Johnson's favorite song ... wasn't a Gram number but rather the Gatlins doing a song with this chorus: "Do they have Mogen David in Heaven, sweet Jesus, if not who the Hell wants to go?" I think this may say a lot about what's on and what isn't ever going to be on.

Permalink Reply by Peter Field on March 29, 2011 at 6:12am

Seems shameful that Tim Mcgraw,  Keith Urban, and Kenny Chesney could end up in the Country Music Hall of Fame with the like of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings.  That's not to say Tim, Keith, or Kenny are not good at what they do, but what they do should be clearly defined as Pop Country.  Majority of mainstream music today,and roughly the past 10 years, has no soul. There is no real connect, all catchy, nothing memorable. 

 

I heard somewhere, "we need less reality stars and more musicians.."  With that said I am slowly starting to find the music again it's there, it is alive but we need to go find it. Sites like ND are a true blessing to both musicians and music lovers. 

Permalink Reply by Tears of the Moosechaser on March 29, 2011 at 4:36pm

Indeed,  my conflict lies there in.  This "underground roots movement", supported by sites like No Depression,  and a random splattering of blogs is left to defining them selves as alt-country, or folk noir,  or avant-americana, or roots music.  A lot of the really good stuff hails back closer to old bluegrass or hills blues.  I think the revival happened around "O' Brother Where Art Thou?"  I think that injected the soul back in a big commercial way and made them relevant to mass audiences.  Ralph Stanley, and John Hartford and countless others were there before but, only a small contingency of people were into it. There are a lot of forums on this site trying to define Americana, but Genres have become too mixed up.   Did anyone read the XXX blog,  about the moonshine music outlaw country thing-a-ma-jig?  

To be honest I have been spinning round this idea that electricity may be the culprit.  That along with producers like Mutt Lange and Big Music Companies.  Its come a long way from the back porch.

Permalink Reply by Peter Field on March 29, 2011 at 6:01pm

So true genre are way to mixed up, that's before you even get into sub-genres.  I'm going to go find the XXX blog.  

Music should be created, not produced. In the end regardless of genre if its real you'll feel it.

Permalink Reply by swt on April 22, 2011 at 8:24am

Mainstream anything, at least for the last 30 years or so, is pretty bad. How did rock 'n' roll go from Jerry Lee Lewis to Dave Matthews? How did jazz go from Coltrane to Kenny G?

 

There's great music everywhere. you just have to know where to look for it.

 

I just reviewed three really cool country albums here:

http://steveterrell.blogspot.com/2011/04/terrells-tuneup-cessna-mor...