Peter Vieira
Wow, you're reading this? Thanks! If you're into RC cars and I seem vaguely familiar, it's because I spent over 25 years writing and editing RC car news, reviews, and tech articles in print and online. What else, what else ... I have a degree in Film Studies (useless), most of a degree in Graphic Design (useful), and I'm married to a wonderful woman with horrible taste in men. Thanks to her, we have a terrific daughter who just earned her Journalism degree and is way, waaay more together that I was at her age. Or right now.
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I’ve skipped most of the country music discussion (no issues with country, just not relevant to me) but FOLD YOUR DICK AND GO HOME is noted and filed under “insults to use in special occasions”. Especially if we add instructions on which direction to fold, I suppose.
incredible turn of phrase, 10/10, A+, no notes
“Fold your dick and go home” would actually be a pretty good title for a country song.
Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, George Strait. Those would be my five, but my opinion is shallow water because I haven’t enjoyed country music since Achy Breaky Heart. I quit cold turkey when I heard that.
I almost forgot DON WILLIAMS.
Don Williams is the best. So one mountain for Don Williams and then another mountain for any other five. Except for Morgan Wallawhatever and Billy Ray Cyrus.
Merle is depressingly underrepresented here.
An overreaction, but valid.
Would Brooks and Dunn count as two or just one?
Ha, I was wondering that, too. TECHNICALLY, DAVID’S LIST HAS SIX HEADS.
Good on Matt for adding John Prine.
Bob Wills anyone? Or does western not count as country?
“We got both kinds – country AND western.”
Heck yeah. Hi-de-ho!
The Texas Playboys are the cure for a bad mood.
Maybe I’m just old… but
Patsy Cline
Ray Price
Roy Orbison
Willie Nelson
I know most folks these days eschew the “Nashville sound” days… but that’s the real foundations of country imho.
Jimmie Rodgers
duck://player/p3L2qf3q-ok
These days, Iris Dement
Yes! You cannot have this discussion about the man who founded the genre!
Is Roy Orbison considered “country”? Roy Orbison is one of my favourite singers and he was AWESOME
I’ve always considered him rock, but there’s probably some crossover.
Definitely, I think.
I have some extra copies of an album recorded by Orbison, Cash, Carl Perkins, and one other I think.
I got to see Carl Perkins play with Dylan live. One of the best shows I’ve seen!
Orbison was generally considered “rockabilly” but he played at the Grand Ole Opry a few times. I’d consider him more “country” than Morgan Wallen or Kane Brown.
If he is even 1% country, I should give the genre more love. Roy Orbison was an angel in a body of a cool, quiet uncle. I wish I knew about him when he was around.
Yeah, we gotta go further back if we’re doing a proper mountain thing.
I actually rather like a lot of the Nashville Sound stuff. Plus the pushback against the Nashville Sound gave us Outlaw country, so it’s a win-win!
Who are Morgan Wallen and Kane Brown?
Today is the first time I’ve ever heard of Kane Brown. I only know of Wallen because of the racism.
Look, there are several evolutions of ‘country’, and they all have their Mount Rushmore artists. Maybe pick just one from each.
Old time classic: Hank Williams. My dad loved Hank. Knowing where and how he grew up, I can appreciate the love.
Next up: Johnny Cash. He started the trend of country moving more toward main stream.
Then comes: Willie Nelson. Starts as a classic artist, but flipped the script and really opened up what country could be to a mass audience.
Lastly there’s the country with pop production: I have no idea. I hear songs, but nothing strikes as a Mount Rushmore.
Nelson is part of Texas country, or Country and Western, which they think is the original and superior.
You’re right, more a Texas country artist, but Phases and Changes made me rethink country, period. Then it was Red Headed Stranger. He belongs.
Agreed
This is a solid list and sort of along the line I was thinking, too. I put Garth for the last one. He was easily the biggest name to start pulling more from other genres in the modern era, and it’s all kind of grown from there.
(Puts on fire suit)
What? No Kid Rock on the list? He’s done country!
Is there any genre he hasn’t tried to ruin?
A bit disappointed Red Sovine isn’t making any lists here
Also, Ray Charles released one of the most successful country albums of all time
I *love* Sovine, as a kid of a 5-generation deep trucking dynasty. But despite that love, I will say he’s a little one-note for a something this epic.
The Ray Charles album was amazing, but sales don’t define influence, staying power, or recognition.
1: Jimmie Rodgers. Arguably founded the genre.
2. Hank Williams. I mean, how could you skip the man who influenced George Jones, George Strait, Johnny Cash, and is the country music embodiment of ‘live fast, die young’.
3: Johnny Cash. Popularized the genre, introduced the rock sound that shifted the genre permanently, while still maintaining a strong connection the gospel and folk roots.
4. George Strait: Carried the country music torch from the mid 80’s through to today.
Honorable mentions:
George Jones- while he may have been a multi-decade legend, and lived an arc that pretty much is a country song, he can’t quite compare to the impact of Cash of the same era.
Willie- he may have done of the the most amazing advancements with his concept albums, but Cash was always the headline draw for the Highwaymen.
Townes Van Zandt- his songwriting may have shifted the genre back towards traditional, he was a background character for the public.
Don Williams: amazing all around.
Dolly: country music #1 woman, but unfortunately the genre has historically been a male-centric world.
Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn. I thought as I put this together “I’m exposing myself as not a real country fan” and “How many better musicians am I forgetting” so I let Google AI answer “who am I forgetting” and found out I am unoriginally reinventing Billboards top country singers of all time list top 4. In truth I think this means only that I’m old.
Should I be embarrassed or proud that I don’t recognize 90% of the artists here?
Proud. You should be proud.
Depends on which 10% you’ll admit to knowing.
I’m at 98%, but then I’m English.
Also I hate jazz, if we’re confessing music stuff. I respect the skill it takes to play an instrument so well that you can make it up as you go along, I just don’t want to listen to you do it.
Wow, you summed up my feelings about jazz perfectly.
Johnny hates jazz too…
But everybody hates Chris.
I had the opposite reaction. This is the first time I have read a pop culture article on The Autopian and actually knew what the hell they were talking about.
I think I recognized everyone they mentioned with maybe two exceptions.
I have to agree with Matt. I’m not a country fan, so under normal circumstances I’d have had no idea who Morgan Wallen, but earlier this week my Spotify’s AI DJ decided I needed some Morgan Wallen in my life. I tried to give it a try, but while I can listen, though perhaps not enjoy, most country from the artists listed in this Slack thread, I couldn’t even finish one song from Morgan Wallen. Even more annoying, that dumb AI DJ has put different Morgan Wallen songs into the playlist each day since, and they are all terrible.
So much recent modern music seems engineered to catch the attention of drooling 3-second-attention-span Tik Tockers and then work as background noise over shitty earphones that it might as well be AI itself for the quality and originality of the work.
It makes me sad how true that is…
My consolation was learning that it is the music and not only me getting old.
That’s what I tell my kids – it may be me doing the yelling, but those clouds know what they did…
My favorite boss loved old country music, but other than Cash, I never caught the ear for it.
There are very Indy country musicians out there, often noticed by foreign markets first.
How many will affect the mainstream remains to be seen, but some are brilliant and not pop.
Mr and Mrs Garvey did a masterpiece album in the 70s, mostly called folk. Played festivals with Hendrix, Joplin and Jefferson Airplane.
Their album has influenced every master songwriter since then. Will they be considered country in the future? Maybe
duck://player/5CzXWq7gjkw
American country is heavily derived from Irish folk. A lot of Irish folk is similar to traditional country here. Impossible to tell who is influencing who. Probably both ways. And the best version of Riders In the Sky came out of East Germany.
I can tolerate country if it doesn’t involve dudes whining, eye-rolling “patriot” pandering, or celebration of white trash culture, but to me, folk is like those high pitch buzzing sounds that are supposed to drive away teenagers that adults can’t hear. (Though I liked the traditional Irish instrumental music they used to play on NPR on Saturdays, but if vocals came on, I turned it off.) While I like some music for what it is, most of what I like is based on whether it’s what I refer to as “cinematic”, that is, there’s something about it that induces scenes for books to run through my head sort of like diegetic music for scenes in movies set in a common universe that eventually make up most of a story that I have to figure out. Sometimes I find it’s something I wouldn’t expect to like at all, but I find any folk I’ve ever heard to be so irritating that it puts me into a difficult to control fight mode and there’s no way the Muses can get through to me in that state. I have never known anyone who likes folk much at all, so it’s nothing to do with some past trauma, I just hate the sound of the genre. As much as I love their work, I have never seen A Mighty Wind because I know I’d find even parody folk music to be intolerable.
I’m not likely to ever see that film.
I think folk is a broader genre than people give it credit for, so broad that outliers become a personal choice what to call it.
Folk tends to be classified with other types.
No one likes every style in a class of music.
There’s a lot of variety to choose from.
Very appropriate response Matt. If anything I would’ve been worse than that, but the PR person didn’t deserve it.
Actually saw George Jones in concert once on a double bill with Lucinda Williams. We were there mainly for Lucinda, but really enjoyed the George Jones half of the concert as well. One rather impressive thing was that George was getting over a cold, so he says to his band, “Boys, let’s take it down a step”. No problem, the whole band of about a dozen players just immediately went down a step for all the songs, which is pretty impressive musician-wise.
Thank you, Jason – at least someone remembered Johnny Cash!
On that first album cover up there, George Jones looks like Jim Carrey’s character in ‘Me, Myself, and Irene’:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSlqlKFvJbr_k9HVpcTDHsZPf0wj8Z7C-neKA&s
In Peter’s list of Matt’s possible music tastes, I didn’t see the comma at first & all I could think of was the first he mentioned was actually David’s- “alternative electronica.” As in Kraftwerk, which would seem to fit more than country.
Maybe they’ve got the wrong Waylon? I could at least see an argument for Waylon Jennings, but Morgan Wallen? Yeeeeessssshhhhh…….
I can’t think of something I’d be less interested in reading, than a story about some Bro-Country abomination.
How about a story of a guinea pig eating a carrot.
Touché
Not a one of you mentioned Marty Robbins? For shame.
Drove in NASCAR, even.
And his cheating episode therein is just so wonderful and easy to forgive.
Big Iron from the Gunfighter Ballads album still gets played.
We even played it at Dad’s funeral! Good song.
Interesting choice!
The funeral song near the end of Knightriders is special.
Cohen’s live version of Passing Through is fitting too.
Joan Baez never thought she could write songs, so wrote few.
She wrote Sweet Sir Galahad for her sister’s wedding.
duck://player/NrrDdTXL-T0
Plenty more names to add before whoever the heck the flavor of the month is for country music.
One name I have yet to see: Patsy Cline
Absolutely!
Willie, Dolly, Dwight, and Hank.
All that, and no Waylon? Tsk, tsk.