Til the Last Cowboy's Gone
I have always been a country music fan. Even when I was a baby, my mom said nothing made me happier to hear than a song with a fiddle in it. In my teenage years, I remained a country fan, but I went along with whatever was popular at the time. I went through music phases...Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Cash...but I pretty well stuck to popular sounds. I think I started floating away from the norm when I watched the movie Walk the Line and realized what a repertoire Johnny Cash really had. However, my real music epiphany started when I heard the smooth buzz-saw voice of Jamey Johnson.
From the first time I heard one of his albums, I fell in love with his music. Some of his songs made me laugh, some made my heart hurt. Some made me want to be in a smokey bar somewhere with an old jukebox, but one thing remained constant. All of his songs made me feel SOMETHING. Sure, they were catchy, but the poetic lyrics and his deep old timey voice made me want to keep hearing more. No matter the subject, my ears loved it. Recently, I sang along to his familiar songs (and enjoyed some I hadn't heard) with a whole crowd, most of whom were buzzed or more, and loved every minute of it. Whether it's his own writing or a cover, he brings his own uniqueness to it, and his music helped me branch out to listening to other artists with similar sounds.
Above all, Jamey and artists like him make me mourn the direction country music has taken. At this point in my music fandom, I appreciate and love the old sounds and even the classic country I used to snarl at my dad for listening to in my teenage years. These sounds and songs are what country music was built on. I like the kind of music that you might hear in a smokey western bar, whether it is upbeat, fun, or makes you cry into your beer. These songs are about something and they tell a story, directly or indirectly. Artists have lost so much of that. Sure, as country folk, we like to drive down gravel roads, drink, and light stuff on fire. But that's not all there is to us. Not all of us are the "one night rodeo" type, and we don't care to hear songs about it over and over. We don't need to keep coming up with "new" stuff for country music, especially this new "putting rap into country" trend they seem to be stuck on. Personally, it makes my ears bleed.
The key, in my humble blogger opinion, is to go back to our roots and look for the answers there. Some artists (like Jamey Johnson) have figured this out. Maybe I'm just a purist when it comes to country music, but I don't see that as a bad thing. If it's not broke, don't fix it. All you end up doing is making it a gaudy eye sore.
I don't think Hank done it this way.
From the first time I heard one of his albums, I fell in love with his music. Some of his songs made me laugh, some made my heart hurt. Some made me want to be in a smokey bar somewhere with an old jukebox, but one thing remained constant. All of his songs made me feel SOMETHING. Sure, they were catchy, but the poetic lyrics and his deep old timey voice made me want to keep hearing more. No matter the subject, my ears loved it. Recently, I sang along to his familiar songs (and enjoyed some I hadn't heard) with a whole crowd, most of whom were buzzed or more, and loved every minute of it. Whether it's his own writing or a cover, he brings his own uniqueness to it, and his music helped me branch out to listening to other artists with similar sounds.
Above all, Jamey and artists like him make me mourn the direction country music has taken. At this point in my music fandom, I appreciate and love the old sounds and even the classic country I used to snarl at my dad for listening to in my teenage years. These sounds and songs are what country music was built on. I like the kind of music that you might hear in a smokey western bar, whether it is upbeat, fun, or makes you cry into your beer. These songs are about something and they tell a story, directly or indirectly. Artists have lost so much of that. Sure, as country folk, we like to drive down gravel roads, drink, and light stuff on fire. But that's not all there is to us. Not all of us are the "one night rodeo" type, and we don't care to hear songs about it over and over. We don't need to keep coming up with "new" stuff for country music, especially this new "putting rap into country" trend they seem to be stuck on. Personally, it makes my ears bleed.
The key, in my humble blogger opinion, is to go back to our roots and look for the answers there. Some artists (like Jamey Johnson) have figured this out. Maybe I'm just a purist when it comes to country music, but I don't see that as a bad thing. If it's not broke, don't fix it. All you end up doing is making it a gaudy eye sore.
I don't think Hank done it this way.