Great country recording

Right, @boxer12?! Even cooler, Todd ended up working with Grisman, as an equal. All it takes is talent! Todd, like the rest of us suburban musicians, became interested in Roots music after hearing it played by The Band and the other great late-60's groups, plus Dylan's John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline albums (recorded in Nashville with all the 1st-call studio musicians): The Byrds Sweethearts Of The Rodeo album, the Will The Circle Be Unbroken album, The Flying Burrito Brothers Sin City album, etc.

We all traced the music back to the 30's, 40's, and 50's, back to the first generation of musicians, songwriters, and singers who created it originally. While most the English guys focused on Blues (Clapton, Page, Peter Green, etc.; Richard Thompson, Albert Lee, and Dave Edmunds were notable exceptions. Thompson's Fairport Convention was very influenced by The Band and their own local music, Albert by Country guitarists and pedal steel players, Edmunds by Chuck Berry and Rockabilly), when we had drunk from the Blues well 'til we were satiated, we turned to the other major Rock & Rock ingredient: Hillbilly/Bluegrass/Western Swing, etc.

Later we would discover the music that was the direct forbearer of R & R, the Jump Blues of the late-40's/early-50's. Louis Jordan rules! Asleep At The Wheel performs Jordan's "Choo Choo Cha Boogie" (as did I in a mid-70's Bay Area band), and Lyle Lovett's Big Band digs into the style. Dozens of "honkers" (sax players) and "shouters" (singers such as Big Joe Turner) were making the music that Elvis, Jerry Lee, and all the other white hillbillies were listening to on the Race stations in the South, along with The Grand Old Opry. There is a great Jump Blues double-LP compilation entitled Honkers & Shouters, a good introduction to the genre.

The suggestion by @boxer12 of Old & In The Way is a good one. It was released in 1975 on LP by audiophile label Acoustic Disc, and features excellent recorded sound quality. They were the ultimate longhair Bluegrass band, a real bunch of hippies.

A bass player who was a member of the same band as I in San Jose (though at different times. He was leaving as I was arriving in 1971)---Todd Phillips---went up to Marin County to take mandolin lessons from O&ITW member David Grisman. Grisman told him there were a lot of really good mandolin players, but a shortage of upright bass players. Todd took his advice, and made himself into a very busy professional musician, both as a sideman and as a member of some great Bluegrass bands, working with the likes of guitarist Tony Rice, the late Art Dudley’s favorite flat-picker.

I last played with Todd in 2012 (I believe it was), and use my memory of the live sound of his 18th Century upright German bass vs. recordings of same in my evaluations of speakers and subs. I also use recordings I made (with a pair of small-diaphragm condenser mics directly into a Revox A77) of my Gretsch drumset and Paiste 602 cymbals. Better drum sound than that heard on almost all my LP’s and CD’s!

Some excellent new additions above.

@reubent’s "Thinkin’ Problem" by David Ball, an absolute Hard Country classic in the tradition of Merle Haggard. I became an instant fan of David’s upon hearing it and him for the first time. Carrie Rodriquez & Chip Taylor (he’s the writer of "Wild Thing"!) made a coupla albums together, good stuff.

@ricpan: Cornell Hurd! He’s an Austin Texas institution, a great songwriter and live entertainer. He has the wit and humour of Dan Hicks, and has written some doozies. Junior Brown included one of them on an album of his, and Springfield Missouri’s The Skeletons (a great Roots Rock band) recorded his "If You Play With My Mind You’re Gonna get Your hands Dirty". The Skeletons’ drummer Bobby Lloyd Hicks was later a member of Dave Alvin’s (The Blasters) band. Hurd band drummer Lisa Pankratz was a member of Alvin’s band The Guilty Women.

Guitarist Paul Skelton plays on Hurd’s Fruit Shack album, and a bunch of others. He’s the guitarist of the first two albums by Wayne "The Train" Hancock, another Austin institution. Paul played in Hurd’s band when we were all still in San Jose, and then Paul and I moved to L.A. together in ’79 to seek our fame and fortune. When that didn’t pan out ;-) Paul moved to Austin to rejoin Hurd, living there until his death (a 2-pack a day man) in 2009.

To show you how small the music world is: Skelton played on those two Hancock albums, but didn’t go on the road with him. Guitarist Evan Johns did, which I didn’t know when a few years later my services were engaged for the recording of Evan’s Moontan album. Six degrees of separation!

Jessie Winchester’s debut album is a beaut, produced by The Band’s Robbie Robertson. It’s on Bearsville Records, started by The Band and Dylan manager Albert Grossman. Other Bearsville artist include NRBQ, Todd Rundgren, Foghat, Bobby Charles, and The Butterfield Blues band. Great label!

In the very late 60’s The Dillards did an album with Gene Clark of The Byrds, an album that was part of the late-60’s/early-70’s longhair Country movement, which also included Dylan’s John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline albums, the first two by The Band, The afore-mentioned Sweethearts Of The Rodeo by The Byrds and The Gilded Palace Of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco, Asleep At The Wheel, and Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen (with steel guitar wiz The West Virginia Creeper and guitarist Bill Kirchen), a great live band.

Thanks @winoguy17, I didn’t know that. I have their All About Town and Are You Through Yet (live) albums (filed between my Redd Volkaert and Townes Van Zandt albums ;-). On what album is their version of "THIGTM"?

Quite a few people perform the song live: Marty Stuart, Rosanne Cash, Kelly Willis. A good song is a valuable thing! Al Anderson of NRBQ left the band to concentrate on writing, relocating to Nashville. A fair number of the musicians on all those 1970's L.A. singer/songwriter albums have moved there too, following the songs. 

Plus Kasey to SO easy on the eyes, like a young Jessie Colter. Waylon Jennings was one lucky guy. Roy Orbison had a real good lookin’ wife too, Barbara. I saw her at the tribute show to Roy held at The Wiltern Theater shortly after his death, and she was stunningly beautiful.

I hear why some find Kasey’s voice child-like, and I agree @bob540, I like that. Julie Miller (Buddy’s wife and collaborator) has a similar quality (she’s a great songwriter, and her albums with Buddy are fantastic), as did Victoria Williams. Some also have a "problem" with Iris Dement’s voice, but she’s my absolute favorite living musical artist. I learned of her in an interview with Merle Haggard in the early-90’s, who was raving about her. His recording of her heartbreaking "No Time To Cry" (the best song I’ve heard in a long, long time) is good, but hers is imo much better. You have GOT to get her My Life album.

For a stand-out recent-ish recording of an old Country song, listen to Buddy Miller’s absolutely superb version of Tom T. Hall’s great "That’s How I Got To Memphis". Classic is an understatement! Buddy sings it SO good, and the musicians on the recording are as good as they come.

Speaking of good musicians: Emmylou Harris for years had had one of the best bands in the world, commonly known as The Hot Band. Here are some of the players who have been members: Vince Gill, Tony Brown, Rodney Crowell, guitar greats Albert Lee and James Burton (he was in Ricky Nelson’s band in the late-50’s/early-60’s, and later played for Elvis), pianist Glen Hardin, drummer John Ware (who studied with The Band’s Levon Helm in ’67), pedal steel guitarist Hank DeVito (writer of ""Queen Of Hearts", a hit for Juice Newton but done better imo by Dave Edmunds), and bassist Emory Gordy Jr. (who was also in Dylan’s band for quite a while). Buddy Miller has served as Emmylou's bandleader/guitarist/harmony singer for a number of years now.

Some great additions above.

Rhonda Vincent is FANTASTIC! I saw her live at the Coachella Music Festival in 2014, I think it was. She’s a fantastic fiddler and singer, with a real fine band. She has albums going back decades, available for peanuts.

I saw Dolly backed by Alison Krauss and Union Station (I lived two blocks from the NBC studio in Burbank, and walked to the taping), so got to hear not only Dolly sing live, but also Alison and Jerry Douglas (her dobro player, and the father of a kid they made together) from only twenty feet away (I was in the balcony directly above the stage).

Alison’s guitarist/mandolin player/harmony singer Dan Tyminski (he sings "Man Of Constant Sorrow" in O Brother Where Art Thou) has a pair of good solo albums.

Wanda Jackson (mentioned in a post of mine above) has a pair of recent albums that may be of interest to you youngins, as they were produced and recorded by Jack White. He also produced a "comeback" album with Loretta Lynn, which I didn’t care for but you may.

Patty Loveless is right at the line where Country and Bluegrass meet. She has great taste in material, is a real good singer, and surrounds herself with the best musicians. Highly recommended!

Now that Gram Parsons has been mentioned, here's more:

Gram was brought into The Byrds by bassist Chris Hillman, to replace the recently-departed (from The Byrds, not Earth) David Crosby. Gram (real name Ingram Cecil Parsons III) was a student at Harvard, playing music in a Folk group. Chris, a former member of Bluegrass group The Hillmen (guess he was the leader ;-) knew of Gram, and between the two turned The Byrds from a Folk-Rock group to a pretty hardcore Country band with the Sweethearts Of The Rodeo album.

Chris and Gram then left The Byrds and started The Flying Burrito Brothers. After a coupla FBB albums, Gram left and started his solo career, bringing along Emmylou Harris, a singer he had heard at a Folk club in the Washington D.C. area. Gram was a huge George Jones and Merle Haggard fan, and the two albums he made before he overdosed in Joshua Tree are classics. Gram and Keith Richards became close friends, and Gram's influence on Keith can be heard on The Stones' "Country Honk" track on Let It Bleed.

Gram and Emmylou's recording of "Love Hurts" is well known, thought by many to be a Gram song. It is actually a song first recorded by The Everly Brothers, written by Felice & Boudleaux Bryant.

I used Iris Dement's My Life album as source material at one CES Vegas. Sounded great on Crosby-modified QUAD 63's. Stuart Duncan, a great fiddle player, is one of the superb musicians on the album.

Chris Hillman's (The Byrds bassist) albums on Sugar Hill records possess great sound quality, and are musically great (a nice "bonus" ;-), His albums as a member of The Desert Rose Band as fantastic as well. His latest album was produced by Mike Campbell of Petty's Heartbreakers.

T Bone Burnett's (producer of the O' Brother soundtrack, as well as The New Basement Tapes) Truth Decay album (originally on Takoma, a label known for good sound and artists) sounds REALLY good.

I'll think of some more if you want.

Tim McGraw is of the mainstream Country I mentioned above. For artistic integrity and stunning sound quality recordings, give a listen to Buddy Miller. He has turned the "front parlour" of his Nashville home into a recording studio. He produces recordings there, when he's off the road with Emmylou Harris, whose band he leads. He also leads the band at the annual Americana Music Awards Show, hosted by Jim Lauderdale, with whom he made a duet album. He is a major player in the Americana scene, where gen-u-wine Country music is being made.

The majority of the "Country" music coming out of the mainstream music factories owes more to The Eagles than to true Country/Hillbilly music: Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, George Jones (including his Rockabilly recordings under the name Thumper Jones!), Lefty Frizzell (The Band covered his "Long Black Veil" on their debut album), Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, Moon Mullican (Nick Lowe has recorded his "7 Nights To Rock", Springsteen performs it live), Faron Young, early Johnny Horton, The Stanley Brothers, The Carter Family (Country royalty), Johnny Cash (my mom's favorite male singer), Patsy Cline, Wanda Jackson (she dated Elvis for awhile), Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Snow, Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt (Marty Stuart joined his band at age 14!), The Louvin Brothers (I hear them when The Everly Brothers are singing), Webb Pierce (John Fogerty included his "I Ain't Never" on his debut solo album, put out under the name The Blue Ridge Rangers! A great album of Country-inspired music), hundreds more.

Iris Dement (Merle loved her, recording her "No Time To Cry"), Patty Loveless, Emmylou, Rosie Flores, Jann Browne, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Carlene Carter (June Carter’s daughter), Kasey Chambers (good Australian singer), Randy Travis, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Jim Lauderdale, Vince Gill, Albert Lee (guitarist in Emmylou’s band for years, also played for The Everly Brothers), Steve Wariner, Joe Nichols, Jerry Douglas (the greatest living dobro player, in Alison Krauss’ band), Rodney Crowell (one time member of Emmylou’s band), Marty Stuart (his band The Fabulous Superlatives are imo the best band in the world at the moment), David Ball (great true Honky Tonk singer), Buddy Miller (Emmylou’s longtime guitarist/bandleader/harmony singer, also a great solo artist and producer), Ricky Skaggs (on the Bluegrass side of Country as of late), Doug Seegers (a true Hillbilly, with the twang to prove it), Asleep At The Wheel (Western Swing), The Del McCoury Band (as Hillbilly as it gets. Start with the album they did with Steve Earle---it won’t sound so "foreign"), dozens of others, but that’s a start ;-) .

Unfortunately, the greats from the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s---Hank Williams, Hank Thompson, Lefty Frizzell, The Louvin Brothers, Webb Pierce, Bob Wills (Merle Haggard’s favorite musical artist---he recorded a tribute album to the man), Ray Price, Merle of course, Buck Owens (Dwight Yoakam’s stylistic model), George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn---were recorded in indifferent sound quality, not what I think you’re looking for. That, plus it was really, really Country, if you get my drift. Way more Hillbilly than you younger fellas can stomach.

But if you want some great pedal steel guitar, you gotta get a Speedy West collection. He was THE player in the 50’s/60’s, and is who all the young players study. Acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddles, and harmony singing is now heard in Bluegrass music, not what is being called Country. That is, mainstream Country. Americana is where real Country made by "artistic" practitioners (rather than mere entertainers) is heard (many of them listed above). Head over to the No Depression website to read all about it.