What is Country?

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i also like calt and wardlow's book on charlie patton

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 5 September 2002 20:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

hmm "books"..... i may have to read one again sometime.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 5 September 2002 20:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

of course they are all commercial bastardisations of just yakking

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 5 September 2002 20:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

heh oh dear

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 5 September 2002 20:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

the opening quote of that F Davis book is brilliant:

" 'I've had fun here.' - JFK Jr. 'Sexiest Man Alive' spends weekend in Clarksdale visiting blues sites, cotton harvest."

I think Sterling might have been on to something up there with the "Christian pop for the fallen" thing but he lost me when he nullified the 70's Hurtin-Beard.

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Thursday, 5 September 2002 21:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

isn't it the case that both mark s & myself like the results of the work done by the documentarians (lomax et al -- ok mainly lomax), and that the sticking point is what exactly that work means? I don't think anybody's saying that "because it's not actually unmediated, it's bad" -- certainly not mark, certainly not me. such success as I've had has involved almost exclusively interrogation of exactly this question, after all ;)

― J0hn Darn1elle, Thursday, 5 September 2002 21:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah John that point got limboed under but I don't think anyone actually misunderstood either of you.

― The Actual Mr. Jones (actual), Thursday, 5 September 2002 21:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

Posit that music (okay, art) is about immenence of redemption -- relation to the eternal. Or even posit that this is one thing music (art) is about and serves as a convienent genre-delimiter -- a hallmark of larger chronotopic aspects. Pop posits it in the present -- the liberatory moment, as a moment. Dance (disco to techno to etc.) generally posits it in an eternal present, or the present verging towards, impelled towards the eternal. Christian pop as an indefinately delayed rapture -- a reflection of absent withdrawn divinity. All generalizations, but country ABSOLUTELY situates it in the past. The lyrics to Toby Kieth's "I'm Just Talkin 'Bout Tonight" could be nothing but country, the interplay of the morals as known and their impossibility as lived -- which is why Tosches on the Hellfire-fearing Jerry Lee Lewis is as close to a definition of country as I can find.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 6 September 2002 03:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

Elvis is SO country - 'cos he was from the country - DO YOU SEE?

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 6 September 2002 08:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

A documentarian's work can form the basis for a historian's work but if the historian's work was just to repeat pat what the documentarian said then what's the point of the historian?

Both the historian and the documentarian share a purpose, though - only the tense changes. The purpose is to record what happens/what did happen, not what should have happened or should be happening. The historian has an extra purpose which is to explain why things happened, and this includes an assessment of the ways in which the documentarian failed.

The work of a bad historian or a bad documentarian can still be valuable and enjoyable, but that's not the same thing.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 6 September 2002 10:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think you're both right.

― the pinefox, Friday, 6 September 2002 10:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

With all this said, and very good stuff said too I might add, maybe we can begin to answer the question.

some thorts:

i. this country has a profound mistrust of "commercialism" which runs through both this conversation and the one the Victor Co. et al were having with their listening publics

ii. at some point the packaging and marketing - and production of - what we call Country stopped being strictly "old-time" and became somewhat "contemporary" (i.e. "the Nashville sound")

iii. Elvis

i have to go - you better have it all figured out by the time i get back!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 6 September 2002 13:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

I can sympathize with Christoff et al's attempt to draw a dividing line between Country and the folk forms that came before it. There does seem to be a qualitative difference between the sorts of things found on the Harry Smith anthology, for instance, and the products of the contemporary Nashville music industry. However, I don't think that the concept of commercialization can serve as that dividing line. It might be more fruitful to view the development of Country as a process of increasing homogenization and standardization which happened for lots of reasons - not exclusively, or even primarily, commercial ones. The rise of the phonograph, radio, etc. has been frequently cited on this thread in connection with Country, although it seems that no one has elucidated the specific ways in which the rise of these technologies affected the music. To say that they made commercialization possible is too simplistic. As Mark so eruditely argued, commercialization is by no means an exclusively 20th-century phenomenon. However, it does seem clear that these new technologies allowed commercialization to take new forms and allowed for the commodification of music in unprecedented ways, but no one on this thread has yet shown how these different forms of commercialization were qualitatively different than forms that came before them, or that they influenced music in a different way. The homogenizing influence of radio and television (not to mention the telephone, the automobile, railroads, etc.) is a well-documented phenomenon - see, for instance, studies of the way that regional dialects have been eroded over the past century in this country. It doesn't take much of a stretch to see how the same thing happened with regional musical forms. To just lump all of these effects into one mass and call it "commercialization" is a gross oversimplification.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 6 September 2002 14:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm back - where are all the Scientifick KonlusionZ0r????

My "ii" is off - folk and hillbilly and honkytonk etc i think we've pretty effectively shown by Science to just be "rural pop" or something close - reworkings of broadway show tunes, old half-remembered ballads, bing crosby numbers - anything people wanted to hear and that the players knew. Then there seemed to be an extreme interest - from Northern record labels! - in straining all this through a sieve that kept the pop out and left the "old-sounding stuff" in. As o. nate says, this changed at some point. I think it has something to do with Nashville, the Opry, and the fact that the Opry was carried on NBC - a national network with national advertisers. The Opry may have begun with presenting a kind of rural exotica to the nation but it ended up doing something else. The something else was Country (with a capital C) - but what was it??

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 6 September 2002 18:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

four months pass...

There was a song I used to listen to about 6 years ago and all that I can remember about it now is that it started off with about a 30second to 1minute harmonica solo and then broke into the song. It was a very uplifting song that just made you feel free. If anyone knows what song I am talking about or has any guesses please e-mail me at tslentz42@aol.com. Thanks.

P.S I know that it is a male singer

― Tslentz, Thursday, 9 January 2003 05:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yankees!!!

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 9 January 2003 07:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

You're thinking of "Thunder Road".

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 9 January 2003 07:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think it is closest to hip hop in the sense of being cheifly a story telling medium, those stories often telling morals about sex or class. i think its is about large sections of america that are lost and forgotten, that are not hip. i think that it is about the dreams that alot of us have cynically jettiosened. i think it is about jeratige, and tradition-not the sticky sweet nostalgia but a genuine desire to be aware from where you are. i think its about the voice and is still nervous about using the studio as an instrument. i think its acoustic. i think its about mandolins and banjos-two instruments that are so beutiful they hurt. i think its about cowboys and outlaws. i think its about love.

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 9 January 2003 08:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think country is dolly clicking her nails in 9 to 5.

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 9 January 2003 08:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

nine years pass...

I'm interested; where does good "Country" exist in the current zeitgeist? The popular acts have zero cred, so where's the true cache?

Gillian Welch is and easy choice, so are the Black Twig Pickers. Cast King, Whitey Morgan

Resurrect this son-of-a-bitch with some genuine earthiness!

― suspecterrain, Monday, 20 February 2012 13:24 (twelve years ago) link

What?

― getting good with gulags (beachville), Monday, 20 February 2012 13:26 (twelve years ago) link

The popular acts have zero cred,

I've seen trolls uglier than this.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 February 2012 13:27 (twelve years ago) link

1925 - The Rice-Kellogg research paper was published, establishing the basic principle of the direct-radiator loudspeaker with a small coil-driven mass-controlled diaphragm in a baffle with a broad midfrequency range of uniform response. On Nov. 28, WSM in Nashville ("We Shield Millions" slogan of owner Edwin Craig's National Life and Accident Insurance Co.) began its Barn Dance radio show (hosted by George D. Hay who had previously hosted the WLS Barn Dance show) that in 1927 became the Grand Ole Opry broadcast from WSM's Studio B on the new NBC network. The Grand Ole Opry moved to the the Ryman Auditorium in 1943 and with the Acuff-Rose 1942 studio and WSM's 1947 Castle Studio would attract recording companies to Nashville's Music Row.
this is from an incredibly excellent page with all sorts of links on it --> http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/notes.html

Sadly, this webpage seems to have gone missing.

― Can You Please POLL Out Your Window? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 20 February 2012 13:37 (twelve years ago) link

(looking forward to reading longer posts, especially by mark s, later today)

― Can You Please POLL Out Your Window? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 20 February 2012 13:38 (twelve years ago) link

The popular acts have zero cred

I suppose you think current R&B acts have zero cred because they don't sound exactly like Sam Cooke.

― President Keyes, Monday, 20 February 2012 14:07 (twelve years ago) link

I suppose you think current R&B acts have zero cred because...

...Advance directly to Frank Ocean

― suspecterrain, Monday, 20 February 2012 14:43 (twelve years ago) link

one year passes...

Recording Technology History page mentioned upthread is now hosted here: http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/recording.technology.history/notes.html

― Wild Mountain Armagideon Thyme (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 21 January 2014 05:37 (ten years ago) link

(It seems to move around a lot. The author is one Steven Schoenherr in case we need to look for it again, and to give credit where credit is due)

― Wild Mountain Armagideon Thyme (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 21 January 2014 05:41 (ten years ago) link

Related links here, although a few are broken: http://ncrtv.org/?page_id=52

― Wild Mountain Armagideon Thyme (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 21 January 2014 05:49 (ten years ago) link

Great link to the Recording History site -- thx Redd; what new technologies will we again need to transfer to? I'm sticking to vinyl.

― bodacious ignoramus, Tuesday, 21 January 2014 07:16 (ten years ago) link

The popular acts have zero cred

I don't have any problems with Nashville pop acts these days, more or less. Some of it catches my ear, a lot of it doesn't. I seriously balk at the notion it should still be called country music, though. Like, whoever...The Band Perry or Blake Shelton or Dierks...are the John Waites and Pat Benatars and Bon Jovis of the 21st century. Corporate rock is still corporate rock, except the center of gravity is now on Music Row instead of Vine.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 21 January 2014 07:27 (ten years ago) link

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