Music...

[crestofwaves]

An amazing phenomenon happened this week. I gave my senior class some free time on Friday because it was the last day before vacation, and I offered to play some music for them. I asked what they wanted to hear, and they said COUNTRY!. These are highly sophisticated affluent suburban kids, and they wanted country music. When I put it on, I saw them singing along. GO COUNTRY MUSIC. Plus, the NYC metropolitan area hasn't had a country station since 1999. We now have one. What on earth happened?

[frenchy]

and here's a tune from an album i saw at englishtown which is a big fleamarket in new jersey .. had no idea who she was but she was playin a telecaster so i figured how bad can it be ?? and even tho she's not really a beauty she has a telecaster and that always makes a girl look sooo much prettier .. how could i resist ?? well i couldn't ..and its country .. found out she's from across the pond too .. not sure if she's irish or scottish or english ..

[frenchy]

now here's austrailias best kept secret .. kasey chambers .. i just love this girl .. and she is sooo country .. you'd think she was born in nashville .. but nope .. i don't think she's made a bad album .. ever ..sometimes she's solem and soft and other times she just rips it .. and she has a crakerjack band .. she rips this one ..

 

[frenchy]

i don't want you to get the idea that i'm not an equal opportunity country music poster so here's one from karla bonoff along with linda rondstadt ..gotta get some women in there too .. after all women love country music too..

[frenchy]

here's one from linda rondstadts guitar player andrew gold .. better known for thank you for bein a friend and lonely boy .. but this is a truely beautiful song .. 

[frenchy]

and who can forget dan fogelberg .. this is country and was made around the time of the eagles first album ..

[ProblemAgain]

this whole era was such a change from what had gone before. the new musical artists were no longer regional but national and they swirled around and formed and reformed groups as well as sitting in on studio sessions for albums for other people. you can read the credits from some of the lps back on those days and you'd have essentially a supergroup formed to put out an album by having all their friends sit in for tracks...a large part of this came out of the west coast from the sunset strip and the surrounding area. you can chart lines from the byrds thru the burrito brothers and poco ...the hollies...pure prairie league...the dirt band...jackson browne... csny....little feat....all swapped members and traded sessions back and forth....and the backing vocals on some albums were top billed concert artists in their own right such as linda ronstadt,karla bonoff, jd souther and on and on...so of course the record companies began stepping in to tell them they couldn't ....after all how do you deal with the credit and the profits if you have 30 different people and 8 music companies etc etc...not to mention they feared that if you liked so and so's albums, you wouldn't bother buying the albums from other people... but that whole swirling mixing was what gave us some new and highly original music...similar to what had happened in the bay area during the 60s when it was delaney and bonnie, it's a beautiful day, leon russell, and that familial era.. and since you LOVE karla bonoff....

[frenchy]

well not to nit pick here but .. this song personally really ain't country music .. i'm not sayin i don't like it or anything like that .. this is more of a stax, muscle shoals kinda thing .. to be honest i'm not sure if she ever did another song quite like this and yet this was probably her biggest hit .. i'd have to go back to see who the musicians were who played on this track but it wouldn't surprise me if it was booker t and the mg's .. and while some of her songs were on the softer side of country .. they had a folk like influence .. she came from the same place as say james taylor or jackson browne .. see if you don't agree?? 

[frenchy]

and this is her doin folk .. james taylor is in there singin backup if you listen .. and she has garth hudson from the band playin the acordian and this could be a band song .. its that good ..you'll have to excuse me .. i just had to get that off my chest ..

 

[ProblemAgain]

[blithe spirit]

Ya'll have really put together a nice collection here fellows...been listening to them one at a time...great selections as always. I've been putting together some new playlists for my ipod and to make some new CD's for my car...some good inspiration for me...thanks!

[Kim]

I lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee for 20 years and I'm NOT kidding you when I say this...country music really wasnt too popular. Hip hop, classic rock, or pop was "IN" but I figured it was  because MOST of the people I encountered were from the North. People are generally from "somewhere else". HOWEVER, my daughter did get hooked on it somehow even though her dad and I did not EVER play it. So...imagine my surprise when I move back to my hometown of Pittsburgh and I'm "drowning" in Country music here!! LOL!! I DO love the classic stuff from "WAY BACK" though. Jimmy Dean,Jonhnny Cash, and Roger Miller were my favorites I think.....they had FUN songs you loved to sing along with.

[ProblemAgain]

exactly....there are regional influences and sort of musical dialects as it were....one of the great things about that is the blending....you have stax and muscle shoals ...and motown.....and the philly sound...and the memphis horns....and northern soul....and nashvillewhich is country ...but it isn't texas country like the nelsons and van zandt and so on....and that california folk/rock/ country stuff that came out of la as well as the music that came out of the bay area which was sort of blended fusion with jazz and psychedelia and etc and then the bakersfield sound which was sort of okie music blended with rockabilly...and florida with the tropical rock and latin ...when it all starts sounding the same, well it all just sounds the same... why it kinda makes me tear up a mite....