Country Music Evolution

John Steele (deceased) · Post by **John Steele (deceased)** » 25 Sep 2000 8:51 am

I used to dismiss the Dixie Chicks as a pop act too, and the banjo as a prop.
Then one night I caught them doing an Austin City Limits show on T.V.
I used to play banjo in bluegrass settings, and some people said I was pretty good at it. I know one thing, if that "chick" showed up on a gig, I'd call her Sir, then make myself scarce !
-John

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 25 Sep 2000 9:22 am

I used to dismiss the Dixie Chicks as a pop act too, and the banjo as a prop.

Those gals are country. No doubt about it. There are definite pop and bluegrass influences in there. But they belong on country radio, not pop.

What remains to be seen is how much (if any) they will change if they start to cross-over. And they're a big enough hit, there's GOT to be pressure for them to do just that.

I understand that they've refused (so far) to re-mix some of their songs without the banjo / dobro, etc. to release for pop stations. I say "good for them". Those songs should do quite well on pop radio just the way they are.

Getting back to Garth Brooks for just a moment: I often wonder if he's ever regretted getting "too pop". When he started out, I liked his music (the first album or two). After that, it was just too pop, not country enough for me (for the most part). If he'd come back and start doing songs like "The Dance" again, I think he'd do quite well in country radio. Maybe not as well on the pop side, but he'd still attract an audience from there.

I could say the same things about Tim McGraw, and a few others, too.

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Mark Frederick · Post by **Mark Frederick** » 25 Sep 2000 9:29 am

Until this morning I was gonna vote for George W. Bush. Done changed my mind, by cracky (a little E.T. lingo there). I'm gonna write in Carl Dixon. Dixon for president!! Has a ring to it, don't it?

Mark

Too country????????

Peter Dollard · Post by **Peter Dollard** » 25 Sep 2000 10:43 am

Regardless of which side of the fence you fall on I was kind of shocked to see the video "Lets Make Love" by Faith Hill And Tim One Note. I really am not interested in their sex life so leave it out of the video along with her eight inch highheels. What in god's name does this have to do with any kind of music?...Pete.

Neil Hilton · Post by **Neil Hilton** » 25 Sep 2000 1:03 pm

Kevin - haven't read thru the full 28 responses here yet, but very fine of you to mention Dale Watson in your initial post...
he would greatly appreciate the company you placed him with, as that's what he's all about - in keeping with a core reverence for the real legends of years gone by. thanks.

John Steele (deceased) · Post by **John Steele (deceased)** » 25 Sep 2000 1:09 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
I was kind of shocked to see the video "Lets Make Love" by Faith Hill And Tim One Note. I really am not interested in their sex life
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
*Down on the floor laughin'*
Peter, that's the new thing... they call it "Soft Country Porn". They leave it up to you which is the soft part - the audio or the video

-John

Theresa Galbraith · Post by **Theresa Galbraith** » 25 Sep 2000 2:51 pm

I love the video of Faith & Tim really reminds me of Romance! It's not about anything other than that. The song was well written and the music compliment's it!
Theresa

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 25 Sep 2000 3:45 pm

With all respect, Carl, today's country is indeed country music. If you play it for rock or R&B fans they will immediately peg it as country, without knowing the song or the name of the singer. I have done this many times. There's a very different set of musical values there, even in Nashville's most "pop" efforts, and it is obvious even to the untrained musical ear.

But when you play those same songs for real country music fans of the older generations, they hear things they don't like and they say "that's not country!". Well, I suppose you can call it whatever you want, but a whole industry and the vast majority of the record-buying public calls it "country music".

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session S-12 (E9), Speedy West D-10 (E9, D6),
Sierra 8 Laptop (D13), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (D13, A6)

Mark Frederick · Post by **Mark Frederick** » 25 Sep 2000 4:03 pm

Yes siree, bOb. You're absolutely right. You can call it country. You can also call a dog a cat. But calling a dog a cat doesn't make a dog a cat.

Mark

Too country???????

Bill Ferguson · Post by **Bill Ferguson** » 25 Sep 2000 4:36 pm

Right on Bob. Whether some like today's music to be called country or not, my feeling is that if we don't call it country, there will be no country ever again.

I have had many changes in my life over the past several years, but my name is still Bill Ferguson, and I play country music every weekend, old and "new" country. I actually like some of the new country much better than the "hillbilly" music that was called country.

That's all.
Bill

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 25 Sep 2000 5:26 pm

My take on it is that "country" music is whatever a large number of people who say they listen to "country" music, and identify themselves as "country" music fans, say is "country" music.

My country music is a big tent. I like a lot of what many on this forum would call "rock and roll with a cowboy hat," like Brooks and Dunn. I also never really cared all that much for Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold, and George Morgan. But both are still what I would call "country."

I don't think the "new country" performers are into excluding traditional country music from "country" music. Play a Bill Monroe record for any of Sawyer Brown and they would say "country." Unfortunately, traditional country fans are usually not as generous.

"Country." It's only a word, and words change. Mark, your example of calling a dog a cat would actually make the dog a cat if enough people recognized that particular mammal and codified its identification with the word "cat." It's only a word, and words change.

Example: "Faggot" was originally an English word for a match or torch that ignited a cannon. Somewhere along the way, it was a slang word for "cigarette." Now, of course, most of us know the current connotation.

Play the music that you like, whatever its called, and/or go out to see performers that play the music you like. Buy their CD's. Don't worry about what Faith or Tim is doing, your opinion won't change anything anyway. The energy you spend grinding your teeth over this could be better spent learning to pick block.

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Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 25 Sep 2000 6:29 pm

Bill, Bob, and Herb's posts have the name thing figured out.
When I read Carl's post, I thought
Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe would have said the same thing about not calling this stuff "Country" when asked what they thought of electric guitars with drums behind Price, Jones, Hag etc.. They hated that modern sound being classified as "Country" and they were vocal about it. The name argument started way back then, not in the 90's.

Paul

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 25 Sep 2000 6:42 pm

Whatever it is, most of it's still more country than anything else. I can only think of a few artists who would probably be better off on the pop stations than in country.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 25 Sep 2000 6:53 pm

Paul, I think the problem is that there is a "conscious effort" on the part of a few people who post on the FORUM to try and persuade others to "forget that classic country stuff".

The general rule (which I just made up) is "Old people don't like young music, and young people don't like old music." Clearly, we're not going to change anybody's mind, so why don't we just accept each other? That answer, too, is clear...at least to Carl!

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 25 Sep 2000 7:20 pm

I think the problem is that there is a "conscious effort" on the part of a few people who post on the FORUM to try and persuade others to "forget that classic country stuff".

I would say "listen to both, and choose the songs you like from both". There's plenty of new stuff I don't care for, and plenty of old stuff I don't care for.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

Neil Hilton · Post by **Neil Hilton** » 26 Sep 2000 6:10 am

I have this very debate with my wife at times and we're only 5 yrs apart in age (34 & 29), but as many have noted - every individual's point of reference in different.

I was born and raised with a mom&dad and grandparents that listened to Hag, Buck, Cash, Hank, Jones, Tubb, etc and that music was very much a part of our farming-family life (Carl Smith was Gpa's favorite) - so, those were my early influences that I still have reverence for today.... i.e. I love to listen to Carl Smith with a Beam&water and think about my grandpa - that music does that for people like me that are genueinely hooked into it. THAT PART WILL SURVIVE - recordings that will survive decades of change, even though not necessarily on the radio, but I don't care about that, my collection is my life's radio.

My wife's musical references are not nearly as strong, not to any genre, but she's taken liking to Tim, Faith, Shania, D-chicks, etc and buying those cd's, listens to each a few times and then they sit in the rack and begin their dust collecting. And that's o.k., but it is aggrevating at times when she wrinkles her nose at my old vinyls that have never seen a speck of dust and that call me to shed tears over my love for my grandpa and our family farm -

So, it is somewhat hard to detemine the long-haul value of today's new-country, the real test will be how many kids today and young new-country fans will be inclined to want to listen to today's current songs 30+ years from now??? Maybe some, but I personally do not feel that most of today's new-country is built to endure. - Neil H.

Ray Jenkins · Post by **Ray Jenkins** » 26 Sep 2000 6:54 am

Neil, as long as guys and gals like us stick around ,it ain't never gonna go away.Help keep it alive.

Ray

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GORDY NICHOL · Post by **GORDY NICHOL** » 26 Sep 2000 6:59 am

A new definition for Pro-Choice

Mark Frederick · Post by **Mark Frederick** » 26 Sep 2000 7:53 am

Herb:

Notwithstanding what may or may not happen in the future vis a vis mammal codification,I'm still going to call Ernest Tubb, Jack Green, Darrell McCall, Ray Pillow et al country and I'm going to call
Faith, Martina et al pop.

Mark

Too country???????

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 26 Sep 2000 8:31 am

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 26 Sep 2000 8:57 am

Donny wrote:

Paul, I think the problem is that there is a "conscious effort" on the part of a few people who post on the FORUM to try and persuade others to "forget that classic country stuff".

I don't think there are many people saying that, Donny. I think that most of us here love classic country and own a lot of it. Most of us have spent the better part of our lives playing it and listening to it.

Today there is a wider variety of music available than ever before. "Country" is one of the big categories that includes a lot of different styles. I don't have a problem with that.

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 26 Sep 2000 9:19 am

Today there is a wider variety of music available than ever before. "Country" is one of the big categories that includes a lot of different styles. I don't have a problem with that.

Exactly.

Some people like only German Shepherds. Others like only poodles. Some like most dogs, except for Dobermans. Others like them all, except a few individual dogs they've encountered.

Some might even insist that "Golden Labs are the only dogs worthy of the name -- the rest might as well be cats."

But they're all still dogs. Right?

I had a better analogy: a ternary diagram with each vertice representing either "country", "pop", and "rock" (I'll leave it to the adventurous to expand it to more than 3 components). Music could then be placed somewhere on that diagram, and presumably "classified" based on which area it occupied. But then I realized we'd all be debating over what, exactly, defines those vertices, and how the boundaries should be drawn.

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Ray Jenkins · Post by **Ray Jenkins** » 26 Sep 2000 9:30 am

O.K. David,lets call in Epperle,he's the diagram person.Ray
P.S.Epperle not the Fiss diagram either.

Ray

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Steeling is still legal in Arizona

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 26 Sep 2000 9:42 am

P.S.Epperle not the Fiss diagram either.

OK, I'll bite. What's a Fiss diagram? Or should that be another topic?

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

Theresa Galbraith · Post by **Theresa Galbraith** » 26 Sep 2000 9:49 am

Bobby Lee,
You are correct!