Country Music is alive and well--providing you can find it! Marketers have successfully sliced, diced and chopped C&W into so many Sushied boxed-sets that even the
radio stations can't find what the listeners are looking to hear.
Artists find themselves boxed without choice or
permission. There are many who insist that the market is younger and
needs to be appealed to with Bubble-Gum Country. I protest! My grandparents both chew bubble gum, they love it and they like
listening to Bubble-Gum Country--but not all the time.
The market may have a younger base with spendable cash, however, it is
as wide as always. Fans of C&W don't stop listening to their music
until they die and then, I believe, they take their CD collections with
them.
Youth is not a new phenomenon to Country.
Tanya Tucker was a teenage sensation, but she grew up and so did her
fans. She sings better than ever. Have you heard her lately? Probably
not unless it was live. Dolly looks better than ever, writes and sings
joyously.
Have you heard her new CD? How about Loretta's
new CD? Most stations have boxed themselves "Out" of the real
Country Music listening audience.
It is time to put
Country Music back together and let the music,"all of it", be heard. Trust us we are
waiting!
Alternative
Country |
Contemporary
Country |
Country-Pop |
Honky
Tonk |
Progressive
Country |
Traditional
Country |
Western
Swing |
Bubble-Gum
Country |
Someone ask me the other day just what kind of Country Music I
created.
"The only kind of music I write
is Country Music", I replied with a smile and exceeding politeness.
They hesitated a moment, then they smiled. The
idea did not seem foreign to them. In fact they rather understood the
concept. Imagine That!
A reporter asked me not long ago who my heroes were in Country Music. I
found the question difficult to answer. How could I mention Reba without Dolly, without Patsy, or George
Strait without Hank Williams,
Jr., and a hundred other artists.
The fiber of my musicality has been woven by
each and everyone I have
ever heard over the course of my lifetime. Every time it rains, or I see
a train,
a duck, a pickup truck, I hear Tom T. Hall singing, "I love
little baby ducks,
old pickup trucks, slow moving trains and rain". Artists and
their songs do
not leave us. They become a part of us if we are allowed to hear them!
The appeal of Country Music is that it vibrates
with the beat of our hearts
and the words reflect episodes in our lives. We identify with it because
it is often a reflection of ourselves.
Everyone who ever was, is, or will be in
Country Music is a sojourner with me Perhaps, heritage encourages my love of Country Music.. Every time
my Scottish genes hear the sound of the fiddle they begin to dance the
Virginia Reel.
Country Music is pretty heroic to me because of
its history and amazing
stories of the immigrants who struggled to come to this country. I
suppose the real
heroes are the immigrants who, in their tenacious search for a
better life, brought their hill country music with them to America. Without
them we would not have what we call Country Music. The roots would still
be in Ireland, Scotland and England. What has been done to commercialize the music and
fuse it to Blues and Rock would become a moot point.
History indicates that 50% of the immigrants
that attempted to reach for their new dream in the new world failed due
to weather conditions, disease, Indian
attacks and lack of food. This makes Country Music all the more
precious, all the more needed as an available part of our lives.
Doesn't that say something to us?
Country Music is a heritage that is worth preserving, not only commercially promoting,
diluting and holding back from its listeners.
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