Kris Kristofferson

....hang on Willie as you are from a time when country was country and was good music.

@garebear , I am inclined to agree with you. I remember growing up in Montana and listening to AM country radio stations and hearing Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynne and Charlie Pride and Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash and Kris and Waylon and Willie and Buck Owens and Roy Clark and Freddy Fender and even Kenny Rodgers and so on and so on . . . and that is what I remember being as mainstream Country & Western at the time.

I might be wrong, but it seems that mainstream Country & Western became, at a certain point and I don’t exactly remember when, Garth Brookes and Toby Keith and a lot of performers that I don’t know the names of but that strike me as Country-Pop.

I do like Emmy Lou Harris and I am glad she is still around, and I like the Millers and Iris Dement and Steve Earle and Lucinda and Allison Krause and I can think of others . . . but the thing is, I don’t feel they meet the criteria for being in the C&W genre anymore. As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure that back when I was going to the CD store and buying CDs, those artists were not found in the "Country" section, but were actually in the "Alternative Folk" or maybe even the "Folk" sections of the store. Which, although related to Country, is in my mind a different genre.

@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."

But remember at one of the long-ago Country music awards ceremonies when Charlie Rich opened the envelope containing that year’s winner of some category, saw the winner’s name, then pulled out his lighter and set the card on fire? The winner was John Denver, whom Charlie obviously had no respect for. In retaliation, the Nashville business establishment black-balled Charlie for the rest of his life. John Denver Country? Not imo.

On the other hand, the "New Traditionalist" movement of the 1980’s produced a new generation of real Country artists: Steve Earle, Randy Travis, Patty Loveless (love Patty!), k.d. Lang, George Strait, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Vince Gill, Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart, and Lyle Lovett, all equally Country as the guys and gals from the 50’s and 60’s.

I recently went to a small club in Portland to hear a new favorite Country singer and songwriter of mine---Brennen Leigh, and at one point in the show she mocked the term Americana, opining that the term was used in the effort to make Country music cool to those who don’t view it as such. In her opinion, Country is already cool, and requires no validation from those who don’t think likewise.

Before Americana, there was the Alt-Country movement, spearheaded by the likes of Uncle Tupelo (members included Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar). And before that there was the Cow Punk scene, which was pretty big in Los Angeles. Both Alt-Country and Cow Punk were Country music made for Rock music audiences, and while I appreciated the band’s of that music’s apparent love of Country music, to me it sounded like kids attempting to play adult music.

There will never be another Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Thompson, Johnny Horton (his greatest hits album was my first LP purchase), Bob Wills, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens (though Dwight Yoakam is sure trying ), Tammy Wynette (my favorite female singer), George Jones (Gram Parsons would still be trying if he had lived), or any of the other artists we consider "real" Country. But if Merle Haggard records an Iris DeMent song, she’s Country. She has actually recorded music that sounds more Country than some of Merle’s own songs.

@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.