Here's the problem with todays country

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 26 Apr 2007 10:14 am

Bill,
Yes, Chet, Owen, and the like saved commercial country music by making it "overproduced / smaltzy" back in the 70s. That "Middle of the Road" style increased record sales.

That doesn't mean I liked it. Chet even admitted later that they strayed too far from real country. He was a business man, doing his job, and doing it well.

I'll agree the Raul clip is "great music", but it sure isn't what I'd call "Country". I wouldn't like to see Country Music return to those days.

Steve Stallings · Post by **Steve Stallings** » 26 Apr 2007 10:20 am

Go to amazon.com and search for the mavericks.

The First CD is called "Hell and Back" Check out the sample of the Buck tune, "Excuse Me"

The CD "Music for All Occasions" is brilliant. "There Goes My Heart", "Just a Memory", and "Neon Blue", come to mind.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 26 Apr 2007 10:37 am

Jim Sliff wrote:If Malo's piece is representative of the mentioned "Mavericks" that's a band I'll be sure to avoid.

This video is nothing like the Mavericks. It's a completely different kind of music.

Jim Sliff wrote:Like singers were trying to be Dean Martin without the hipness.

Funny, but I never thought of Dean Martin as "hip". My dad was a Dean Martin fan, and he was a square as they come. Or so I thought. Maybe my old man was a hipster in disguise.

Steve Hinson · Post by **Steve Hinson** » 26 Apr 2007 11:25 am

b0b,I always thought Dino was the HIPPEST...

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 26 Apr 2007 11:34 am

Dino was in the "Ratpack". No humans in Vegas were hipper than Sinatra, Martin, and Davis.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 26 Apr 2007 12:25 pm

I liked the stuff with the Mavericks all right, and Raul certainly has good pipes, but he's always sounded too loungy to me. I couldn't even listen to this whole clip.

I do note that, contrary to what everyone has said, I do hear a couple of notes of steel (barely) on "For the Good Times".

I just went back and listened to the whole thing. "Crying" I don't consider a country song. It's a great one, and Raul doesn't do it any harm, but he's no Roy Orbison.

Until recently, this was the kind of "country" that I hated. I guess it shows I'm becoming an old fart, but if I had to choose between sitting through a concert of this or a Rascal Flatts concert, I'd probably go with this. But that's no compliment to Raul.

Bob Ritter · Post by **Bob Ritter** » 26 Apr 2007 1:05 pm

I loved it. I am going to click back and watch it again...if a person did not like that he probably would not like this either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=webW7qnk1Ow

And if you think that was not good enough here is a song made just for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flw3VJbi4yg

David Higginbotham · Post by **David Higginbotham** » 26 Apr 2007 6:24 pm

On a Classic Country station out of Houston, there is a short clip they play from the Great Loretta Lynn about "Classic Country."

Loretta Said:
"When Merle Haggard came on the radio, you knew it was Merle Haggard! When Ernest Tubb came on the radio, you knew it was Ernest Tubb! Everybody had thier own sound. Today, everybody sounds like everybody else and if you don't look up to see the video you will never know who it is!"

Point well made!

Andy Greatrix · Post by **Andy Greatrix** » 27 Apr 2007 3:54 pm

Videos take away the mystery of the human voice telling a story. People used to listen to country music; now they watch whatever it has become. When I was a kid in the fifties listening to WWVA on a battery radio hooked up to a wire clothesline, my imagination was the only thing I could see. Music was in the forfront of my theater of the mind. Hank Snow sounded ten feet tall.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 27 Apr 2007 5:40 pm

James Cann wrote:
Raul is a great singer, and the songs are classic, but WAY OVER-PRODUCED.
As was Ray Charles's "I Can't stop Loving you," perhaps?

Yes, definitely. No sacred cows here! Ray was fine, but often seemed to be competing with his own orchestra and vocal group. "Hit The Road, Jack" was the sound I liked. IMHO, "I Can't Stop Loving You" wasn't a Ray Charles sound at all, it was a sea of "Nashville Sound" drowning what could have been a great solo performance.

Mike Winter · Post by **Mike Winter** » 27 Apr 2007 7:05 pm

Like b0b said, this is nothing like The Mavericks. Their albums from the mid-nineties had some great stuff on them, yes even fiddles and steel. There Goes My Heart, Oh What A Cryin' Shame, Excuse Me (I Think I've Got A Heartache), The Writing On The Wall, etc. Check them out, and don't be so quick to judge things you don't understand.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 28 Apr 2007 5:04 am

Yeah, I'm with Steve H. and Bill H. on this "hipness" thing about Dean Martin and guys like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and many others. However, to a certain extent, I think this impression is cultural and generational. I don't think it really matters a lot, and I can't see why anybody would get worked up about this music style thing - just one more De Gustibus Non Disputandum.

I remember Johnny Carson's last show, where he responded to something somebody in the new Tonight Show troupe said about Doc Severinson and the Tonight show band not being too hip, to which he responded with something like them being "the very essence of hip" - can't remember the exact wording. Of course, I totally agree and miss Johnny and the band loads. But I agree they represented a different era in music.

To the topic - this clip of Raul represents an interpretation of an older style of music. I happen to appreciate it for what it is - a fine singer interpreting a style that is perhaps not exactly home base, but doing a good job. Still, if you don't like it, don't write off the Mavericks, who were one of the most important bands of the 90s in any style, without giving a careful listen. Of course, I meausure "importance" by the music they generated and its influence, not the cultural and CA$H impact they had. But I argue that nobody has ever blended the various aspects of country, rock, pop, and other styles better than the Mavericks. IMHO, of course.

IMHO, "I Can't Stop Loving You" wasn't a Ray Charles sound at all, it was a sea of "Nashville Sound" drowning what could have been a great solo performance.

Of course, you have every right to that view, but I couldn't disagree more. Most of the blues cats I know also totally love this - and it was so important musically to help a lot of people see the very obvious connections between country music, R&B, and the blues. Sure as blazes helped me. One of the all-time landmark recordings - IMHO, of course.

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 28 Apr 2007 9:51 am

Ray Charles' "I Can't Stop Loving You" came from an LP called "Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music" if I'm not mistaken. Personally, I prefer the older styles but I'm not taken aback by the new stuff out there. Country music is continually evolving as all other styles of music do too! Listen to the country of the thirties and forties, is that anything like what they had in the fifties and sixties? I don't think so! At one point there were no electric instruments and then came Ernest Tubb with Billy Byrd's guitar on Walkin' the Floor Over You. The Opry had no drums for a long time and neither did other country music but artists like Bob Wills, Ray Price, Buck Owens, etc. changed all that. Hank Williams records never used drums at all. Like it or not, the Nashville sound was a part of "our" country history and I love it. I also love to hear the original Carter family or Delmore Bros. recordings. It all has a place in country music and every person has the right to their own likes and dislikes in the field. My band played some of the Maverick's hits when they were popular and we play some of today's stuff as well as classic tunes. You can play them in front of an audience or you can pick only in your bedroom for you own enjoyment. I like to play in front of a crowd, so if it takes playing newer things to do that, I will. I hate to say it, and I'll probably lose any credibility that I might have had, but I even like some of Kenny Chesney's songs. Before he made it huge the Virginia Country Music Association co-sponsored an Alabama concert that included Kenny as the opening act. I met him and Alabama and he was more down to earth than they were. Jeff Cook was a total @$$ to everyone.........JH in Va.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 28 Apr 2007 11:40 pm

Hank Williams records never used drums at all.

It seems to me, interestingly, that I've always read it was Hank that first outraged the Opry by bringing a drummer, and they arrived at a compromise by letting the drummer play, but behind the curtain! Many here surely know better than I: urban (country?) myth or fact?

James Cann · Post by **James Cann** » 29 Apr 2007 4:15 pm

Ray Charles' "I Can't Stop Loving You" came from an LP called "Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music" if I'm not mistaken.

Jerry, you're correct on the album title, which itself serves as justification of the intent, and what follows your good point is that material of any real "musicality" can be oriented to any genre out there. Try reading any of Emily Dickinson's poems to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas."

I'm thinking more and more that content is the issue. Think of the themes in the country of the earlier years: open,ideas of real life, honest to the point of discomfort, much like any situation of close human emotion, performed in straightforward style (Nudie suits and sequins aside). Stuff like this transcends genre, and time, for the matter.

However, "Here for the Party," "Ba-Donk-a-Donk," etc.? What's that line, all hat, no cattle?

How about all store window, no stockroom.

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 30 Apr 2007 7:29 am

Brint I think the Hank of Opry Drums/Curtain legend was Thompson not Williams

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 30 Apr 2007 8:15 am

You know, Dave, I think you're right. Thanks for the correction. If I hadn't put the quote in my post, I could have said "Sure, Hank Thompson. Who did you think I meant?" Dern it!

Mark van Allen · Post by **Mark van Allen** » 30 Apr 2007 5:03 pm

This video is nothing like the Mavericks. It's a completely different kind of music.

And the Mavericks were nothing like the Mavericks...
I used to see them around here before they got the record deal. Absolutely Burning country-rock, and the main lead instrument was a gal playing viola!
And without a doubt, the loudest country club band I'd ever heard. I was stunned that Nashville would take a chance on their sound... until I heard the first release. Nothing like how they used to sound.

Drew Howard · Post by **Drew Howard** » 4 May 2007 8:50 am

turn the damn drums down or take them off altogether...

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 4 May 2007 1:34 pm

I was stunned that Nashville would take a chance on their sound... until I heard the first release. Nothing like how they used to sound.

Once you sign on the dotted line, you're theirs, which is okay. Most artists now are more devoted to money than their own "art" or style, anyway.

That's why, when Nashville gets through with them, they all sound pretty much alike.

The Steel Guitar Forum

Here's the problem with todays country

Jerry Hayes writes: