51 Of Best Country Music Songs Of All Time (Billboard)

[Chris Templeton]

https://www.billboard.com/lists/best-co ... -all-time/

[John Larson]

Oh this will probably prove to be an entertaining thread.
I'm shocked David Allan Coe made the list I figured he was absolute persona non grata these days.

[Don R Brown]

I clicked on it "just for a moment" out of curiosity. 20 minutes later I had checked out every one, and will have to find the list showing #s 1 to 50. There were only a very few I was not familiar with, one from the 1920's and a couple recent ones.

Thanks for posting that!

[Brint Hannay]

These lists are silly, but one comment:
Crediting Chris Stapleton for "Tennessee Whiskey"? I suppose if his version were the only one, the lyrics might suggest its inclusion. But George Jones had the previous chart hit on the song that included what I assume was the original (quite good) melody; I don't see any good reason for completely changing the chord structure and dropping the melody altogether, as Chris S. did.

[John Larson]

These lists are silly, but one comment:
Crediting Chris Stapleton for "Tennessee Whiskey"? I suppose if his version were the only one, the lyrics might suggest its inclusion. But George Jones had the previous chart hit on the song that included what I assume was the original (quite good) melody; I don't see any good reason for completely changing the chord structure and dropping the melody altogether, as Chris S. did.

Don't forget David Allan Coe with the best hairdo in country music history

[Brint Hannay]

So now I learn that David Allan Coe recorded the song before George Jones. And apparently much the same version as G.J. did. And I Google and find the "sheet music" online, with a melody and chord progression that don't remotely resemble the DAC or GJ versions, though it lists the same two writers named everywhere online as writers of "Tennessee Whiskey". And almost every Google "hit" treats "Tennessee Whiskey" as a Chris Stapleton thing. I Have attempted (and I can read music) to read the sheet music and see if it in fact resembles more closely the Stapleton version. It's a lot more like it than DAC or GJ. Is that because the writers/publishers chose, in the wake of the recent success, to revise it to conform to the most recently-lucrative recorded offering? Or was it the writers' original concept?
So I wonder: Do the original writers care what happens to their work, musically?
Whichever way, it's clear that the Billboard writers concerned themselves primarily or entirely with the content of the lyrics of the song.
Q: What's the difference between a poem and a song?
A: The song expresses what it expresses via words and MUSIC.

[Don R Brown]

Brint, I do understand what you are saying. Often when we hear a well-known song performed in a different way, it can sound almost sacrilegious.

But there is nothing which says that, once written, (or once it becomes a hit), a song can't be done any other way. I'm sure we could come up with a great many songs which have been significantly altered, or varied. Haven't had my coffee yet so I can't grab an example, but for instance traditional country music has taken many songs from bluegrass - sometimes slightly changed, sometimes much more drastically.

I'm not saying Stapleton's version should (or shouldn't) be in the top 100. I WILL say this in its defense. It's a popular song when playing out, it lends itself well IMHO to a lot of different approaches on the steel, and it certainly gets more people onto the dance floor than George Jones's. If our goal is to make the audience happy, and they want to hear that one, it doesn't seem right to "force-feed" them the one we knew before this one came along.

[John Larson]

I'd argue Chris Stapleton's version has become the more popular version. Those that know know it isn't originally Chris's song but on the other hand George Jones is more famous for other songs. The fact that Chris's cover got popular at the height of the "bro country" mess shows that there was still an audience for classic country and by extension classic country songs.

The whole etymology of "covering a song" is that back in the day the cover would cover the original on radio and become more famous as a result.

The history of country as a format is littered with now classic renditions of songs that became more famous than the original recordings.

As much as I personally prefer Kristofferson's recording of "Me and Bobby McGee" (or Waylon or the Grateful Dead's versions for that matter). It's going to be synonymous with Janis Joplin long into the future.

Reba's cut of "Fancy" is more known to a certain generation than Bobbie Gentry's original.
"Crazy" is synonymous with Patsy Cline and not Willie Nelson.
"Night Life" is a Ray Price song even though Willie wrote it.
Randy Travis and Keith Whitley both cut versions of "On the Other Hand" within a couple years of each other but it's known as a Randy Travis song.

Another modern instance of this effect is Morgan Wallen's cover of Jason Isbell's "Cover Me Up" with a superb steel solo from Paul Franklin. Wallen's cover is much more known by the general public to the point where I was playing the Isbell version for a crowd of people and they thought that version was the cover.

I'll give billboard some credit they could have gone with Darius Rucker's "Wagon Wheel" but they stuck with the Old Crow Medicine Show version.