When Sturgill Simpson released Metamodern Sounds in Country Music in 2014, the critiques raved that he had saved country music and embodied the heart of the Nashville sound. Well, this pissed off Sturgill, who went about proving them wrong and occasionally saying that the Nashville sound should just burn to the ground. His next few albums went about embodying that idea.
Country music was an era when commercial investors dictated what the sound of the artists would be (top down control of the media), and Nashville put a choke hold on the artists from then on, till the outlaws strove to break out of that "sound." I will have to say, I have never been particularly fond of the Nashville sound.
But, if you listen to that first Beatles album released in the US, you will hear Nashville in that album. Because if you give the people something too new, they'll reject it. Elvis, Beatles, Jerry Lee Lewis... to make something new, you have to stir in a little of the old, or the body will reject it.
Now, I like me some classic country from time to time. I prefer bluegrass, because bluegrass lived outside of that corporate control. They were the heatherns, allowing interracial musicians to mingle on the stage, and speeding up the music for more dancing, which the extreme Baptist control over Nashville didn't care much for.
But, of all of the country music give me either the outlaws or the Bakersfield influence, like newer Buck Owens, Tex Mex, Lefty, and more recent works by Johnny Cash.
I grew up with Hank Williams Jr living just down the road from us. So, we had outlaws around us, as well as visits to my dad's store by Randy Owens... well, he was probably visiting with the music store next door, but he did drop by and get some pictures with my dad for "The Wall."
The Muscle Shoals sound is an interesting bit of Country music lore as well... my cousin was a studio drummer there, and he is all over our State Hall of Fame and on more than half the labels for musicians' lists him with percussion credits. He taught me to play the drums, although, ha ha, I was never even half as good as he was. He and his son now have a company where they set up percussion for bands on tour as well as light and pyrotechnics. But Russ still plays with his own band that has recorded a few albums as well.
So, what the hell is country music? Ha ha. For a brief period in time the church holding hands with corporations forced recording studios to make an approved sound, whether the artists wanted to or not. I just can't set down and enjoy Oak Ridge Boys, or Barbara Mandrel... maybe a little Ernest Tubb. But, for the most part, I look for musicians that slammed Nashville and convention to the wall and had a blast. I mean, sure... Dolly Parton has a place in my heart.... but classic country as a whole.... nahhhh... Give me Mexican horns instead of that gawdaweful Hawaiian steel guitar. Give me banjo over Grand old opry trash. Give me whisky drenched sounds of outlaws over pretty picture and pretty ribbons.
Oh, BTW, my wife is directly related to Dr. Bascom Lamar Lunsford, to whom God gave the banjo on the mountain tops of North Carolina, and he brought the instrument down to Nashville, where he helped destroy that philistine sound of corporations. He paved the way for Doc Watson to come down there and smite them with their drummy claw hammers, so that the people were free to dance. Lunsford is a famous name in Western NC. Statues of him everywhere, and when my wife mentions her name, we get VIP treatment everywhere we go there. And, she plays a pretty mean fiddle herself.
