Kris Kristofferson

@immatthew: Yeah, the lines separating Country & Western, Hillbilly, Bluegrass, Folk, Singer/Songwriter, etc. are not clear cut. And it was---imo---the emergence of Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, etc. that led "mainstream/commercial" Country music to lose it’s credibility. Steve Earle declared Shania to be "the highest paid lap dancer in Nashville."

Steve Earle does have a way with words.

@bdp24

I probably suffer from the aging process which has an effect on the way I remember "the good old days." Although, at the time, I didn’t think of those days as all that great. And although I listened to it (then) because my choices were limited, (then) I didn’t care for what I think was then mainstream as much as I like it now.

I think back and what I think of then being "mainstream country" strikes me as being more honest than what I consider "mainstream country" now. However, that may not be entirely true. A while back ago I bored and surfing youtube and watching segments of the Buck Owens show (which I used to watch on a fairly regular basis back in the old days) and it reminded me that I was not all that crazy about all of his guests. I am more forgiving of Tanya Tucker now than I was then, but I still don’t like the Hager brothers (I remember seeing them at a state fair in ’77) and I never did like that guy who bore a suspicious resemblance to Buck Owens and that he (Owens) frequently had on as a guest and there were quite a few others that struck me the same way back then.

It could be that the performers/artists that I remember more fondly were the exception and not the rule.

Lastly, I will say that I once went on a binge of watching The Glen Campbell Good Time Hour (not to be confused with The Charlie Manson Good Time Hour) reruns on Tubi, and I completely loved it. I get the impression that Glen Campbell’s "innocent routine" was pretty much a facade, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the interaction of Jerry Reed (who always looked like he was having nothing but a great time) with anybody (in particular the banjo player, Larry McNeely) and he had a lot of great guests.

Matthew: Larry McNeely! I have an album of his, Live At McCabe’s (Takoma Records), the well known acoustic instrument shop on Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica (a favorite haunt of Ry Cooder). There is a concert venue in the back of the store; I saw Van Dyke Parks there in the 90’s.

The two other players on the album (of Bluegrass music) are Jack Skinner and Geoff Levin, the latter a member of the San Jose group People (a 1-Hit Wonder, with a 1968 cover of The Zombies "I Love You"), whom I saw live many times in 1965 through 1969. In ’69 my teenage Garage Band opened for them at The Cocoanut Grove Ballroom on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Ah, memories.

Both Glen Campbell and Jerry Reed were excellent guitarists, very high paid session musicians before becoming performing stars. Glen in the L.A. studios (as a member of The Wrecking Crew), Jerry in Nashville.

@bdp24 , I don’t know beans about the banjo (or any other string instrument) but I could tell just by watching and listening to the guy that he was crazy good. What I really got a kick out of was how deadpan he was the whole time , every time. I remember watching an episode in which he did one of his smoking solos and when the number was over, Glen Cambell said something to the effect (and I am paraphrasing) that he had the best 5 string banjo player alive on his show; Larry McNeely simply mouthed a silent "Thank you." I really enjoyed that.

And then Jerry Reed would play along side Larry McNeely and he (Jerry Reed) was anything but deadpan. Every time he looked like he was just having the most fun in the world. People are always talking about people that come off as someone they’d like to have a beer with, and that’s the way Jerry Reed always came off to me.

If you are ever bored, search out some of those episodes of Glen Campbell’s Good Time Hour on Tubi (or probably youtube), I bet you’ll get as big a kick out of it as I did.

I’ll do that Matthew.

Speaking of YouTube, singer/songwriter Otis Gibbs regularly posts videos of his interviews with (mostly) musicians, many of them Country. Here’s one of my favorites:

https://youtu.be/_7PT_f5G5z8?si=eZSr5nnq6bSDvZfG

All right, here’s another with the same guitarist as in the above video---Jedd Hughes, wherein he talks about an album in my all-time Top 10, The Houston Kid by Rodney Crowell. He also speaks about Emmylou, as well as Buddy Miller, Albert Lee, and Richard Thompson, three of my favorite guitarists.

https://youtu.be/eNsLNY6YruY?si=Mo3ipX_DDl1XzA1R