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Originally Posted by DriveYourCarDownToTheSea
I'm sort-of two minds about the whole thing. One the one hand I do agree that country music that doesn't sound much like, well ... country music ... probably doesn't really count as "country music!"  On the other hand, I also recognize that a genre - any genre - has to grow and experiment or it just keeps repeating the same thing over and over, which gets boring. It's one reason why I've become sort-of 'meh' about the blues: I like the blues, but after a while they all start to sound the same. And if you stray too much from it, it doesn't sound so blues-y, so then you have to wonder if it's really a blues song, and some of its original appeal is lost.
Darned if you do, darned if you don't, I suppose. |
Au contraire, mon frère... there is plenty of experimentation going on in the world of authentic country music. Examples are the present day alternative country artists like Lucinda Williams, Marissa Nadler, Jolie Holland, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Laura Cantrell & Alison Krauss. Notice that many of the new alternative country music artists are female.
The alternative country music scene began in the late Sixties with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. In the Seventies and Eighties, John Hartford, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Townes Van Zandt, Dillard & Clark, Freddy Fender, John Prine, John Hiatt, Norman Blake and Steve Earle kept the home fires burning. And just when everyone thought authentic country music was dead, along came Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown, and the soundtrack to
Oh Brother Where Art Thou, which revived an interest in the old time music of Americana. It's true that Jeff Tweedy's Wilco has developed into an alternative rock band, but Jay Farrar's band Son Volt, is steadfast in keeping with the country music tradition.
I always considered the Eagles and Linda Ronstandt to be closer to mainstream rock than country music, even though Ronstandt had the vocal pipes to be the greatest country music singer ever. I hated the Eagles and the only person in the Eagles who was a good country music player, Bernie Leadon, was unceremoniously fired by the Eagles because they wanted to be rock stars. I can't imagine why the Eagles fired Leadon to replace him with a drunken arena rocker like Joe Walsh.
Somebody earlier in the thread wrote the Flying Burrito Bros. weren't a real country music band, but that person must have thinking of some other band. I saw the Burrito Bros. twice in concert and own all of their albums and if they don't sound like a country music band, then I'm Brad Pitt and my wife is Angelina Jolie.
From my perspective, the Drive By Truckers are more of a roots rock band in the tradition of Credence Clearwater Revival, than an authentic country music band.
The amazing part of the newer alternative country music stars is they are experimental without impugning the integrity and authenticity of the country music form.