Is This The End Of Traditional Country Music ?

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 16 Apr 2009 7:36 pm

Interesting article in Newsweek. I guess the real country fans here on the forum are not the only ones that feel that country music has contracted a terminal disease.

[/url]http://www.newsweek.com/id/192377[url]

I can't seem to get the link to work. Maybe someone smarter than me can fix it for us.

John P. Phillips · Post by **John P. Phillips** » 16 Apr 2009 8:08 pm

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192377

Eric Jaeger · Post by **Eric Jaeger** » 16 Apr 2009 8:29 pm

Good article. Of course, I agree with it, so it's good

Hey, if "country" music is only being made by "neo-traditionalists" and "alternative" types, I can live with it. Next month I'm going to a big blues festival and a big bluegrass festival, both musical forms that have been declared dead many times over, but kept alive, and even had new forms developed, because people love the music.

We may be headed the same way, and given how many people on the forum love "traditional" country, I suspect we'll do fine.

They can call Gnashville product whatever they want. I'll go to Austin

-eric

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 16 Apr 2009 9:31 pm

Yep, I suppose it will survive. But, it's becoming a niche music. Certainly not mainstreem. I like some of most kinds of music, but when you go to the Blues Festival you want to hear Blues, and when you go to the Bluegrass Festival, you want to hear bluegrass...and if I go to the Grand Ole Opry, I want to hear country,...not rock and pop being called country. If you want a dose of real live country you have to go to TX.

I wouldn't go to a church gospel singing and sing
"Truck Driving Man" and tell them it's a gospel song. But, I know some girls walked in the back door with their guitars at what they thought was a jam session. Someone immdiately asked them to sing so they sang "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels". After that and no applause, a preacher started reading from the Bible. It was just then that they realized that they had walked in the back door of a church service, We still laugh about that one.

Charles Davidson · Post by **Charles Davidson** » 16 Apr 2009 11:40 pm

That's allright Rick,us old pickers never die,we just STEEL away. DYKBC.

Chris LeDrew · Post by **Chris LeDrew** » 17 Apr 2009 3:33 am

This is a really well-written article. I like the guy's sense of humor:

"Today's suburban music buyers don't labor in coal mines or cheat on their wives. Well, they don't work in coal mines, anyway."

"But to put it in terms Lonestar might understand, at some point, we all have to put on our big-boy pants and move on."

"...songs like "Watching You," which tells the gritty tale of a little boy making a mess of his McDonald's Happy Meal after his daddy hits the brakes too hard ("His fries went a-flyin' and his orange drink covered his lap")."

Excellent. Thanks for the link!

Nathan Sarver · Post by **Nathan Sarver** » 18 Apr 2009 1:27 am

Thanks for the link. I was just complaining about this to my wife two days ago. We were eating lunch at a place that was playing a country station and a Taylor Swift song came on and I said, "Do people really hear this and think it's country music? Can you really just quietly stick a banjo or pedal steel low in the mix of a teenie-pop song and call it country?" She suggested that Taylor Swift's clean-cut image doesn't jive well with the slutty nature of regular pop music, so some execs reckoned it'd be best to slap a "country" label on her.
The very next song, though, was that "I Wanna Talk About Me" by King Windbag himself, Toby Keith, which makes Taylor Swift sound like Loretta Lynn.
I'm only 30, so I don't consider myself old, but is there any genre of music that has turned out quality material in the last 20-25 years? When I was a teenager I had to listen to my parents' records to get my hands on good music. My heart aches for my poor son.

Richard Sevigny · Post by **Richard Sevigny** » 18 Apr 2009 9:23 am

Nathan Sarver wrote: ...is there any genre of music that has turned out quality material in the last 20-25 years?

I think the music industry has become more and more about personality (ie celebrity) and less and less about the music. Witness the freefall of instrumental music. Unless you listen to classical or jazz radio, there simply isn't any music where a (prepackaged and marketed) human voice isn't front and centre. Guitar (or any other instrument) solos are limited to a four bar intro to the song if they're heard at all.

Nathan Sarver · Post by **Nathan Sarver** » 18 Apr 2009 12:01 pm

I agree. There was a time when someone like Aretha Franklin could be a big star by having a great voice and singing great songs. Nowadays the execs would tell her she doesn't have the right look. But you have Britney Spears, who has one of the weakest voices I've ever heard, lip-syncing to a choreographed dance number in between costume changes, and she's the biggest music star in the world.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 18 Apr 2009 2:07 pm

Yep, I suppose it will survive. But, it's becoming a niche music. Certainly not mainstreem.

Yup, I think that's the deal. I truly believe that traditional country singers, musicians, and fans need to think about starting their own organizations separate from the mainstream commercial country interests, much like bluegrass and blues afficionados did a long time ago. It's a model that works, and even pays benefits of cyclically being included in the mainstream - look at SRV, Robert Cray, Allison Krauss, and so on.

One of the problems is that country has always strongly incorporated elements of the greater popular music scene and its evolution paralleled that scene in a way to gradually move it into the mainstream. In a sense, it is, ironically, a victim of its own success.

I really don't think it's hopeless. It will require organization and a set of principles that, on the one hand, doesn't let it stray too far from the center of gravity, but on the other hand, doesn't enforce a rigid orthodoxy as happened early on with, for example, bluegrass and "folk" music. The tent has to be big enough to get a critical mass but not lose itself trying to be all things to all people.

My opinions, naturally.

Joe Miraglia · Post by **Joe Miraglia** » 18 Apr 2009 2:24 pm

So real country muisc is about-Being in prison, about shooting a man in Reno,if drinking,don't kill you,I'd rather have the Happy meal.The way things are going today thats all we need is a " Sing Me A Sad Song". The change I notice is, country music going from sad crying songs to silly and having fun songs. Joe

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 18 Apr 2009 2:36 pm

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. It gets my feathers ruffled when someone hears "Murder On Music Row" or "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" and make comments like "that's telling it like it is", etc... then the same people drool at the mouth over some of the new artist that are nothing even close to country.

If one chooses to like both kinds of songs, that's just fine, but don't say you support the "get back to real country" position and then go off after the new stuff like it's the best thing since sliced bread.

There's a lot of good music and good musicians in different fields of music. I have no quarrel with any of them, except I just wish country could be country again.

I think the Texas guys might have it figured out. If you want to keep your country, country, don't get mixed up in the current Nashville scene.

Tom Quinn · Post by **Tom Quinn** » 19 Apr 2009 5:51 am

Who is that #$%^ who has a hit on the C&W videos about this sleazy biker taking the minister's daughter away? I hate that song. It's a hit too. Is that Toby Kieth?

Theresa Galbraith · Post by **Theresa Galbraith** » 19 Apr 2009 6:22 am

Another #1 for "God Love Her" by Toby!

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 19 Apr 2009 8:31 am

I haven't heard that one. Maybe it's a knock off of Haggard's "Farmers Daughter"?

Tom Quinn · Post by **Tom Quinn** » 19 Apr 2009 11:07 am

Yeah, takes the Lord's name in vain and rides his fat butt on a Skirtster up to a church. There's a special place in hell for guys like him -- the devil's trailer park.

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 19 Apr 2009 12:09 pm

Shame on him!

Tom Quinn · Post by **Tom Quinn** » 19 Apr 2009 1:00 pm

You laugh, but C&W has 99.99 percent been respectful of family and religion. Might be a song about the singer's failings, but you make a joke about taking the minister's daughter -- who looks like a decent person as does his wife -- and you are cruising for a bruisin' from above. See what becomes of old Toby over the next few years...

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 19 Apr 2009 1:17 pm

I'll take your word for it. I've never heard the song, and my crystal ball says listening to it is not in my immediate future.

Joe Miraglia · Post by **Joe Miraglia** » 19 Apr 2009 3:03 pm

Tom Quinn wrote:You laugh, but C&W has 99.99 percent been respectful of family and religion.

I'm sorry Tom, but I could start a list of some of our favorite tradional country artists who have been alcholics, spousal abusers, and drug addicts--some of them have been in jail. Names do not have to be mentioned, so why single out Toby Keith for a song that goes against the grain? Joe

Joe Miraglia · Post by **Joe Miraglia** » 19 Apr 2009 4:02 pm

Cal Smith,singing one of his greatest hit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNf3eHJG ... re=related

Tom Quinn · Post by **Tom Quinn** » 19 Apr 2009 4:23 pm

I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but this is what I said. Country music was always about personal failings. My problem with the TK video -- and hey, it's just me -- is the image of a bozo breaking up a home and taking a young girl away from her loving parents.

I guess this is further colored for me by the fact that I think keith is a big fat no-talent jerk, someone I have zero respect for.

and now:

YMMV!!! -LLL_

Roger Rettig · Post by **Roger Rettig** » 20 Apr 2009 8:23 am

Thanks, Nathan, for a good post and my favourite SGF 'quote of the day':

"The very next song, though, was that "I Wanna Talk About Me" by King Windbag himself, Toby Keith, which makes Taylor Swift sound like Loretta Lynn. "

There is no punishment severe enough for Mr Keith.

Joe Miraglia · Post by **Joe Miraglia** » 20 Apr 2009 9:19 am

A singer guitar player,from where I live,once said to me" What right does Mr.Keith have,
singing about putting a boot up his --- and singing patriotic songs. He never served in the military" . True he didn't ,but his favorite will know traditional country star,couldn't serve in the military , he was serving time period.Joe

Joe Miraglia · Post by **Joe Miraglia** » 20 Apr 2009 9:31 am

Roger Rettig wrote:Thanks, Nathan, for a good post and my favourite SGF 'quote of the day':

"The very next song, though, was that "I Wanna Talk About Me" by King Windbag himself, Toby Keith, which makes Taylor Swift sound like Loretta Lynn. "

There is no punishment severe enough for Mr Keith.

Just being a Windbag never hurt anyone.Joe