Do you think "country music" is all just sappy pablum and pointless drivel?

[ConsAreLiars]

Well, there's plenty of evidence to support that view, and the history of that genre has seen the increased domination of commercial interests, the accompanying suppression of populist sentiment, and its conversion into a bland mix of jingoism and pop entertainment. There have always been exceptions, but your Clear Channel country radio station won't let you hear them.

But, along with its origins as simple at home singing and strumming for the sheer pleasure of making music, the origins include a fair bit of story telling.

You may know of the Carter Family, or maybe just Johnny Cash and June Carter. But there's another group that was featured during a break following a story on Mountain Top Removal mining and its recent further deregulation by the corporatist monsters in DC. Here's the story: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/24/1321257

And the song that was played, Draglines, is Number 6 on this Rounder Records Album: http://www.rounder.com/?id=album.php&catalog_id=4306 . Give it a listen. Just a sample, sadly. If you want to listen to some core voices of "real" country music, listen to the whole album. Hell, listen to the whole Rounder Records catalog. As always, there is more there than Corporate Media want you to know.

(edit, since I discovered that the Rounder site just gives a snippet - sorry about that. There are, however, a few full length mp3s on the artists' site, to provide a fair hearing.)

The group, Reel World String Band has there homepage at http://www.reelworldstringband.com/ ad some more of their music online at http://www.reelworldstringband.com/listen.html

I'm sure many here are well aware of that incompletely suppressed musical tradition, but I hope a few can begin to appreciate that art for what it once was and what some of continues to be, and realize that the commercialized crap that is sold to us as "country music" is about as far removed from its original character as the Luxor Casino is from ancient Egypt.

[cosmik debris]

1. I just got back from the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival

Before that I was at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Real country music is alive and well and doesn't sound anything like Garth Brooks or Randy Travis.

[yurbud]

4. I hope so. Just like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Justin Timberlake aren't rock

[Redneck Socialist]

7. If you ever get east in July check out the Grey Fox Bluegrass festival in NY

I've been going for years and it's always awesome.

[cosmik debris]

9. Thanks for the tip

I googled it and it sounds like a great line up. I'll try to make it next July.

Telluride is in June, Grand Targhee is in August. July is open and in need of a good date.

[Redneck Socialist]

12. It's well worth the trip. n/t

[ConsAreLiars]

17. Here's a youtube video of the Carter Family.

Nothing "political," just a common life ballad. Just Bluegrass. But closer to Woody Guthrie than Garth Brooks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq3AiyahYk4

[Captain Hilts]

2. Certainly NOT! Molly Ivins said Country covers ALL emotions.

A friend of mine had an ugly break up. I told her "THIS, is what country music is for." As she's a liberal, northeastern Jew, I don't really think it took, but she appreciated the sentiment just the same.

[eridani]

24. Molly Ivins has the last word, as usual--

http://www.scsdems.org/stored021107/Issue021107.htm

I have myself quite cheerfully been both a country-music fan and a feminist for years --- if Camille Paglia is the cosmos, so am I. When some fellow feminist doesn't like my music (How could you not like "You are just another sticky wheel on the grocery cart of life?"), I have always felt free to say, in my politically correct feminist fashion, "Fuck off."

[phaseolus]

3. I always loved that 'Draglines' song

I heard the Reel World String Band perform that one live, 25 years ago, and haven't heard it since. I still have their first release on vinyl sitting around here somewhere.

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Here are the lyrics:

There's even a MIDI link to illustrate the tune, although is doesn't even hint at the richness of the two part harmony that is so much of the core of that musical tradition. http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/midi/DRAGLINE.midi

Draglines
{Deborah Silverstein)

Draglines at my heart
They're tearing us apart
And the mountainside where we were born
Must I weep and mourn for the land
That took ten million years to form
Now all my eyes can see are just the bleeding scars
Across the mountainside, across the mountainside

Coalport PA, just a little town
Not too far away
For anyone to know
That the folks born and raised
For six generations working day by day
Tryin' keep themselves alive

Our neighbours down the road
They farmed twelve acres
Worked a heavy load
Always dirt though they tried
The coal company came through
Said we'll mine your land
Take the burden off of you
And we'll see that you get by

First they tore down their homes
Where the grandma, all the kids were born
They just tossed it all aside
Then came the big machines
Ripped up the trees
And muddied all the streams
While the family stood and cried

Draglines at my heart
They're tearing us apart
And the mountainside where we were born
Take warning that the stormclouds will come
And block out the sun
That's shining on the folks who seek their fortunes off
The families who have died
Dying to survive, across the mountainside

[David Zephyr]

5. No. Not at all.

I still prefer bluegrass and the old country to the new formulated and packaged stuff.

[Redneck Socialist]

6. Good to see Hazel Dickens all over that list

If you can listen to Black Lung and still have a dry eye you're not human.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

10. Don't know about current stuff, but I love Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.

Hank Williams is great, too.

[Aristus]

11. Not at all.

There's a great deal of horseshit and unholy crap, too. God! Country music SUCKS! :puke:

[LostInAnomie]

13. I would say it's more like corny, gimmick laden, adult pop.

It's just like almost any other type of modern music. The industry has discovered that style will sell over substance almost every time so they've cranked out scores of low talent, tight jeans wearing "hunks and babes" that sing formulaic pablum.

Sure there are some good artists out there, but no one has heard of them and country fans don't don't force stations to play them. The fans are as complicit as the industry for turning country into a running joke.

[Tanuki]

14. check out Music row Democrats

http://musicrowdemocrats.com/
:nopity: :hi:

[WHAT]

15. No!...that twang

comes not just from the guitar, but from the tremble of the underlying emotion.

What about Hank Williams, senior AND junior?

and Guthrie ' s
heirloom plaints

ok, some of it is pablum and posturing but that is a commercial shellac that weathered
and beaten

(I never heard country and western until after hs, then someone asked me why i was listening to that okie music)

derived from authentic experience
mannered and courtly in its own way

strolling with attitude

[ConsAreLiars]

19. Woody Guthrie sang with that same twang.

And told the same truth. Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNuW4rmZGis

[WHAT]

22. He was great...

warnt he!

[KT2000]

16. Tom Russell

who is considered country was on Letterman the other night and he was great.
A song about what he was afraid of - not the usual but mainly white guys in golf shirts!!

[Jed Dilligan]

18. No

It just stopped existing in the mid-late 70s. What's called country now is redneck-flavored pop.

[MilesColtrane]

20. Regardless of labels, there is gold and shit anywhere you look.

As the great Duke Ellington said, “There are two kinds of music...good music, and the other kind.”

[ConsAreLiars]

21. Not "anywhere you look," unfortunately.

"Depending where you look," is more accurate. Sadly, most people only have access to the corporate friendly versions of "country music" provided by their corporate PR outlets on corporate-owned radio stations and never encounter the good music. But it is there, if you can find it. Rounder Records is a good place to look.

[WinkyDink]

23. No. I just don't like twangs.

[Perry Logan]

25. Yes. Good singers, lousy songs.