Why I Love Country Music

But where does that leave Bubbba Sparxxx, David Banner, Kid Rock, Nappy Roots, Toby Keith, and all of those kind of people who do both?

Except maybe for Field Mob. Or Woody Guthrie. Or somebody.

see it's these kind of "provocative" but slightly disingenuous things that annoy me...oh well...

>i mean like their brains haven't always caught up with their...<

I don't get how this is truer for country guys than for anybody else.

i'm just saying that "rap" isn't just some musical quality that you happen to pick up on it's a genre! defined by a range of musical and other qualities! of which charlie daniels isn't a part!

never mind though, i don't want to get into another fight.

Here's Charlie's best rap song, for what it's worth:

Artist: Charlie Daniels Band

Buy Charlie Daniels Band's CD

THE UNEASY RIDER
Charlie Daniels

SPOKEN:
[C] I was takin' a trip out to L.A.
[F] Toolin' along in my Chevrolet
[G7] Tokin' on a number and diggin' on the radi-[C] o ...
[C] Just as I crossed the Mississippi line
[F] I heard that highway start to whine
[G7] And I knew that left rear tire was about to [C] go.

Well, the spare was flat and I got uptight
'Cause there wasn't a fillin' station in sight
So I just limped on down the shoulder on the rim
I went as far as I could and when I stopped the car
It was right in front of this little bar
Kind of redneck lookin' joint, called the Dew Drop Inn.

Well, I stuffed my hair up under my hat
And told the bartender that I had a flat
And would he be kind enough to give me change for a one
There was one thing I was sure proud to see
There wasn't a soul in the place, 'cept for him and me
And he just looked disgusted and pointed toward the telephone.

I called up the station down the road a ways
And he said he wasn't very busy today
And he could have somebody there in just 'bout ten minutes or so
He said now you just stay right where you're at
And I didn't bother tellin' the durn fool
I sure as hell didn't have anyplace else to go.

I just ordered up a beer and sat down at the bar
When some guy walked in and said; "Who owns this car?
With the peace sign, the mag wheels and four on the floor?"
Well, he looked at me and I damn near died
And I decided that I'd just wait outside
So I layed a dollar on the bar and headed for the door.

Just when I thought I'd get outta there with my skin
These five big dudes come strollin' in
With this one old drunk chick and some fella with green teeth
And I was almost to the door when the biggest one
Said; "You tip your hat to this lady, son."
And when I did all that hair fell out from underneath.

Now the last thing I wanted was to get into a fight
In Jackson, Mississippi on a Saturday night
'Specially when there was three of them and only one of me
They all started laughin' and I felt kinda sick
And I knew I'd better think of somethin' pretty quick
So I just reached out and kicked old green-teeth right in the knee.

He let out a yell that'd curl your hair
But before he could move, I grabbed me a chair
And said; "Watch him folks, 'cause he's a thouroughly dangerous man."
"Well, you may not know it, but this man's a spy
He's an undercover agent for the FBI
And he's been sent down here to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan."

He was still bent over, holdin' on to his knee
But everyone else was lookin' and listenin' to me
And I layed it on thicker and heavier as I went
I said; "Would you beleive this man has gone as far
As tearin' Wallace stickers off the bumpers of cars
And he voted for George McGovern for president."

"He's a friend of them long-haired, hippie type, pinko fags
I betcha he's even got a Commie flag
Tacked up on the wall, inside of his garage
He's a snake in the grass, I tell ya guys
He may look dumb, but that's just a disguise
He's a mastermind in the ways of espionage."

They all started lookin' real suspicious at him
And he jumped up an' said; "Now, just wait a minute, Jim
You know he's lyin' I've been livin' here all of my life."
"I'm a faithfull follower of Brother John Birch
And I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church
And I ain't even got a garage, you can call home and ask my wife."

Then he started sayin' somethin' 'bout the way I was dressed
But I didn't wait around to hear the rest
I was too busy movin' and hopin' I didn't run outta luck
And when I hit the ground, I was makin' tracks
And they were just takin' my car down off the jacks
So I threw the man a twenty an' jumped in an' fired that mother up.

Mario Andretti woulda sure been proud
Of the way I was movin' when I passed that crowd
Comin' out the door and headin' toward me in a trot
And I guess I should-a gone ahead and run
But somehow I couldn't resist the fun
Of chasin' them all just once around the parkin' lot.

Well, they're headin' for their car, but I hit the gas
And spun around and headed them off at the pass
I was slingin' gravel and puttin' a ton of dust in the air
Ha Ha, well, I had 'em all out there steppin' and fetchin'
Like their heads were on fire and their asses was catchin'
But I figured I oughta go ahead an split before the cops got there.

When I hit the road I was really wheelin'
Had gravel flyin' and rubber squeelin'
And I didn't slow down 'til I was almost to Arkansas
Well, I think I'm gonna re-route my trip
I wonder if anybody'd think I'd flipped
If I went to L.A. - via Omaha.

i'm fascinated by how tracy byrd not only sings about what he likes; he also feels the need to delineate what he doesn't like. a lot of rappers have done that, too.

there are a lot of indie rock songs in the same vein (e.g. helen love's "rollercoasting") that namecheck all the bands they love, but that generally don't go on to diss the ones they hate. the indie way seems to be, "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything."

is it that rappers and country singers have a tough-guy thing in common, where fightin' is part of livin', while indie rockers are twee wimps who don't have the balls to put up a fight? or is it something else altogether? or am i making this all up? i'm not sure which approach i like better, but it does seem to me like there's a clear difference.

Rapping is something people DO. Genres don't come out of nowhere; they have prehistories as well as histories. And talking blues, like prison dozens and scats and squardance calls and reggae toasts and auctioneer barking and Blowfly and Pigmeat Markham and "They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha Ha," are part of rap music's prehistory. I just don't get why you find that idea so offensive; obviously, there's no right or wrong answer about what "is" rap (or metal or country or ??) or "isn.t." And you're welcome to disagree about this record or that one. I just think it's hilarious that you pretend that the borders are completely clear cut. They NEVER are. That's part of what makes music FUN. It DOESN'T neatly fit into little boxes.

Did you READ the lyrics?? Okay, let me isolate this part:

>>Now the last thing I wanted was to get into a fight
In Jackson, Mississippi on a Saturday night
'Specially when there was three of them and only one of me
They all started laughin' and I felt kinda sick
And I knew I'd better think of somethin' pretty quick
So I just reached out and kicked old green-teeth right in the knee.
He let out a yell that'd curl your hair
But before he could move, I grabbed me a chair
And said; "Watch him folks, 'cause he's a thouroughly dangerous man."
"Well, you may not know it, but this man's a spy
He's an undercover agent for the FBI
And he's been sent down here to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan."<<

The racist southern rednecks are attacking HIM, do you get it???

Blowfly did, since he used the exact same cadence in "Blowfly's Rap" a few years later (just like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five took part of "The Message" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues"!)

And besides, as Fact Checking Cuz wisely just pointed out (and as Kid Rock has been sayinig to deah for years), the fact is that outlaw country guys and gangsta rappers often have very SIMILAR worldviews.

by the way, I often call that worldview they share "Punk Rock."

Though there are many other names for it, as well.

(And some metal guys often share more than some punk guys do.)

But how much has Nashiville country really changed since countrypolitan and Billy Sherill? Sure, the production values have changed and the sensibilities have grown with pop sensibilities, but Clint Black sounds a lot more like Jim Reeves or Glen Campbell than Wilco sounds like Roy Acuff. You're way more familiar with modern pop country than I am, so I could be way off but alt-country (save for a few purely throwback artists) dedication to tradtion seems as much lipservice as Nashville's. I understand your frustration with bullshit alt-country elitism, but I think you make Nashville out to be a little more progressive than it really is.

oddly, this is precisely the kind of thing you say all the time.

I hear this motto all the time, but I don't hear it in the music. It work for Ms. Welch and for the O Brother bluegrass types, but Neko Case, Richard Buckner, Uncle Tupelo, Freakwater... I don't really hear it there. The influence is there, but they are far from attempts at "what country used to be." Which makes the criticism of "isn't country music allowed to evolve?" seem unfair, because what you're really objecting to is one of the directions it has evolved.

Not enough. But you're right, that was a horrible match and you're right that that dissmissing production values and sensibility, I was dissmissing what generally constitutes change in music. What I guess I was trying to say, in a muddled, roundabout way is that, in my mind anyway, despite additional influences, there's a much clearer lineage between 60s Nashville and 00s Nashville than there is between pre-Nashville legends in most alt-country. You said it in a way when you noted that r&b and dance influences that were so pervasive in Honky Tonk or Western Swing are almost completely absent from the Bloodshot crew.
The problem that arises throughout this thread, I think, though, is not "what do we mean by 'country'?", but "what do we mean by 'alt-country?" Is it Bloodshot stuff or is it Laura Cantrell or is it Will Oldham or Blue Rodeo or Tarnation or the Old 97s or Lucinda or the Scud Mountain Boys or Lambchop (and Pernice and Wagner opens up the issue of alt stuff paying homage to Nashville). Some of them are now, like Wilco, far removed from Hank worship and the ones that are more clearly nostalgia acts are repping different parts of country's pretty varied history. The Will Oldham stuff that recheas for older-sounding authenticity sounds nothing like Bob Wills or Hank Thompson. I really like Andrew's definition of alt-country as "a wary, parasitic, mostly one-way relationship, but some kind of relationship nonetheless" with "true" industry country.

Probably contradicting myself (like I probably already have 50 times earlier in this thread), but I'm guessing that's not an especially NEW thing, Haikunym; i.e., "Indian Outlaw" (McGraw's first hit) blatanly sampling "Indian Reservation" in the early '90s. Seems there's probably a zillion other examples out there. But honestly, I probably have been being too dogmatic about some of this stuff -- like you said, pop-country's changing and not changing, acknowledging its past even as it forgets what its past really sounded like. Just like hip hop. Just like ALL music probably. Maybe even alt country, I dunno. (I wish people would give me examples of alt country that don't sound so WHITE, though. It reminds me of powerpop and indie rock, just really bashful and arhythmic and anal-compulsive. But probably I'm totally generalizing, and maybe there are examples to the contrary. The new Bottle Rockets CD totally devolves into corn and kitsch and obviousness, and never rocks half as hard as Brooks and Dunn or Montgomery Gentry even though people tell me they're the hardest rocking alt country guys out there, but there are still two great songs on it and a couple more good ones. The Cactus Brothers did an amazing cover of "16 Tons" about five years ago where the guitars got real punk and raunchy, Count Bishops raunchy. But from Jason and the Scorchers and Rank and File to the Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks, I've never heard that happen anywhere else in music that I *think* would be called alt-country. So what exactly am I missing???)

My father went to Ethiopia a year or so ago and on the way to the hotel from the airport he was talking to the cab driver until the guy suddenly turned and said "Shh! It's Shania Twain!" and turned up the radio.

to Colin: talk to H in Addis about African people's love for Jim Reeves, dude's like a god all over Africa

Nothing, I guess. Alt-country "white" tendancies with indie rock and power pop. If you're averse to those things, you're going to enjoy pretty limited range alt-country.

one of the questions in the poll is: "We’d like to know whether you think Shania Twain, Jay Farrar, Nickel Creek, Kenny Chesney, Gillian Welch, Faith Hill, David Grisman, Keith Urban, the Bottle Rockets or the like should be considered a country music act in 2003." so there are questions even among the country critics about people like Chesney and Urban and Hill as well as the others; notice the lack of Wilco or Drive-By Truckers there?

but they do say that we get to choose who WE think is country in all the categories. wonder what they'll say when I vote for Anthony Hamilton for best album? (I probably won't...but I might.)

And you can pinpoint obsession with the past and dismisal of country pop on 70s country-rock canon faves like Gram Parsons, country-era Dylan, Doug Sahm et al. Haha, blame the 70s all around.