@garebear: Not to be argumentative---and appreciating the sentiment expressed directly above---but now is also a time when Country is Country and is good music. Sure, not the stuff on the radio or awards shows (except for the annual Americana Music Association Honors & Awards Show), but in the underground/cult scene.
For those old enough to remember it, it’s very much as things were in 1967-8 when underground FM radio stations started playing Rock, Blues, and Psychedelic music for listeners who wanted more than what Top 40 AM radio was offering. There is a very healthy, active "Traditional" Country Music community making a LOT of great music, but you have to look for it.
I could name a hundred artists, but I’ve already done that here a number of times. If the names Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Iris DeMent, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Jim Lauderdale, and John Hiatt don’t mean anything to you, well, you have a very pleasant surprise awaiting you. And those are just a few of the better known artists. I could easily name a couple dozen lesser known (but not lesser talented) artists.
You’ll notice the list is made up of solo artists, not bands. That’s because in Country music, it is the song that is King. Rock music is dominated by bands, because it is often the sound a band produces that is what listeners like about their music. In Country it has always been the song. The well known Country songwriter Harlan Howard coined the term "Three chords and the truth" to characterize Country music.
Somewhat as a reaction to the Psychedelic music of the mid-to-late-60’s, there was a contemporary musical movement that can be characterized as "Back-to-the-roots". The roots of Rock ’n’ Roll, essentially. Those roots were basically 2-fold: the 1- Hillbilly music and the 2- Jump Blues music that the white Southern young men like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and dozens more were hearing on the radio (radio was the main source of entertainment in the 1940’s and ear;y-50’s). Elvis and the rest were also sneaking across town in Memphis to hear the Jump Blues bands plating in the "Colored" Juke Joints.
That late-60’s search led back to Hillbilly music, the name originally given to Country & Western. Hillbilly came in a couple of different flavors, the most potent being Bluegrass. Elvis original releases---five Sun Records singles (released on both 7" 45 RPM and 10" 78’s)---contain a Hillbilly song on one side, and a Jump Blues on the other. He is often accused of "stealing" the music from the Negroes, but a comparison of his version of "Hound Dog" to the original by Big mama Thornton quickly dispels that myth. Elvis transformed both Hillbilly and Jump Blues into the original Rock ’n’ Roll: Rockabilly.
Every decade since the late-60’s (when the Counterculture generation started listening to and playing Country music) has produced it’s own group of Country artists, both "good" and "bad". Of course good and bad are a matter of opinion, and taste.
