Kris Kristofferson

That perspective being of looking in the mirror.

@slaw: Me too Steve, as well as a few of his with Rita, and her solo. I don't know why I didn't get into them back in the 70's, but better late than never.

I became acquainted with Billy Swan when we both lived in Sherman Oaks, CA. He served as Kris'es band leader/guitarist/harmony singer for years, and is pictured on the back of T Bone Burnett's Truth Decay album. He told me about seeing Elvis, Scotty, and Bill Black perform on the back of a flatbed truck in 1956. That was before D.J. Fontana had been hired to play drums with the trio. I was impressed. 

All right, here’s another with the same guitarist as in the above video---Jedd Hughes, wherein he talks about an album in my all-time Top 10, The Houston Kid by Rodney Crowell. He also speaks about Emmylou, as well as Buddy Miller, Albert Lee, and Richard Thompson, three of my favorite guitarists.

https://youtu.be/eNsLNY6YruY?si=Mo3ipX_DDl1XzA1R

I’ll do that Matthew.

Speaking of YouTube, singer/songwriter Otis Gibbs regularly posts videos of his interviews with (mostly) musicians, many of them Country. Here’s one of my favorites:

https://youtu.be/_7PT_f5G5z8?si=eZSr5nnq6bSDvZfG

Matthew: Larry McNeely! I have an album of his, Live At McCabe’s (Takoma Records), the well known acoustic instrument shop on Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica (a favorite haunt of Ry Cooder). There is a concert venue in the back of the store; I saw Van Dyke Parks there in the 90’s.

The two other players on the album (of Bluegrass music) are Jack Skinner and Geoff Levin, the latter a member of the San Jose group People (a 1-Hit Wonder, with a 1968 cover of The Zombies "I Love You"), whom I saw live many times in 1965 through 1969. In ’69 my teenage Garage Band opened for them at The Cocoanut Grove Ballroom on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Ah, memories.

Both Glen Campbell and Jerry Reed were excellent guitarists, very high paid session musicians before becoming performing stars. Glen in the L.A. studios (as a member of The Wrecking Crew), Jerry in Nashville.

@immatthew: Yeah, the lines separating Country & Western, Hillbilly, Bluegrass, Folk, Singer/Songwriter, etc. are not clear cut. And it was---imo---the emergence of Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, etc. that led "mainstream/commercial" Country music to lose it’s credibility. Steve Earle declared Shania to be "the highest paid lap dancer in Nashville."

But remember at one of the long-ago Country music awards ceremonies when Charlie Rich opened the envelope containing that year’s winner of some category, saw the winner’s name, then pulled out his lighter and set the card on fire? The winner was John Denver, whom Charlie obviously had no respect for. In retaliation, the Nashville business establishment black-balled Charlie for the rest of his life. John Denver Country? Not imo.

On the other hand, the "New Traditionalist" movement of the 1980’s produced a new generation of real Country artists: Steve Earle, Randy Travis, Patty Loveless (love Patty!), k.d. Lang, George Strait, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Vince Gill, Keith Whitley, Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart, and Lyle Lovett, all equally Country as the guys and gals from the 50’s and 60’s.

I recently went to a small club in Portland to hear a new favorite Country singer and songwriter of mine---Brennen Leigh, and at one point in the show she mocked the term Americana, opining that the term was used in the effort to make Country music cool to those who don’t view it as such. In her opinion, Country is already cool, and requires no validation from those who don’t think likewise.

Before Americana, there was the Alt-Country movement, spearheaded by the likes of Uncle Tupelo (members included Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar). And before that there was the Cow Punk scene, which was pretty big in Los Angeles. Both Alt-Country and Cow Punk were Country music made for Rock music audiences, and while I appreciated the band’s of that music’s apparent love of Country music, to me it sounded like kids attempting to play adult music.

There will never be another Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Thompson, Johnny Horton (his greatest hits album was my first LP purchase), Bob Wills, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens (though Dwight Yoakam is sure trying ), Tammy Wynette (my favorite female singer), George Jones (Gram Parsons would still be trying if he had lived), or any of the other artists we consider "real" Country. But if Merle Haggard records an Iris DeMent song, she’s Country. She has actually recorded music that sounds more Country than some of Merle’s own songs.

For those who haven’t heard it, Gordon Lightfoot’s recording of Kris’ "Me And Bobby McGee" is a great version (it’s on his If You Could Read My Mind album, originally issued as Sit Down Young Stranger). As a bonus, it features excellent recorded sound quality.

In Country music, there is no show of respect greater than for one songwriter to record another’s song. Merle Haggard recorded Iris DeMent’s devastating "No Time To Cry", and while a good version it doesn’t come close to Iris’ own.

@garebear: Not to be argumentative---and appreciating the sentiment expressed directly above---but now is also a time when Country is Country and is good music. Sure, not the stuff on the radio or awards shows (except for the annual Americana Music Association Honors & Awards Show), but in the underground/cult scene.

For those old enough to remember it, it’s very much as things were in 1967-8 when underground FM radio stations started playing Rock, Blues, and Psychedelic music for listeners who wanted more than what Top 40 AM radio was offering. There is a very healthy, active "Traditional" Country Music community making a LOT of great music, but you have to look for it.

I could name a hundred artists, but I’ve already done that here a number of times. If the names Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Iris DeMent, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Jim Lauderdale, and John Hiatt don’t mean anything to you, well, you have a very pleasant surprise awaiting you. And those are just a few of the better known artists. I could easily name a couple dozen lesser known (but not lesser talented) artists.

You’ll notice the list is made up of solo artists, not bands. That’s because in Country music, it is the song that is King. Rock music is dominated by bands, because it is often the sound a band produces that is what listeners like about their music. In Country it has always been the song. The well known Country songwriter Harlan Howard coined the term "Three chords and the truth" to characterize Country music.

Somewhat as a reaction to the Psychedelic music of the mid-to-late-60’s, there was a contemporary musical movement that can be characterized as "Back-to-the-roots". The roots of Rock ’n’ Roll, essentially. Those roots were basically 2-fold: the 1- Hillbilly music and the 2- Jump Blues music that the white Southern young men like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and dozens more were hearing on the radio (radio was the main source of entertainment in the 1940’s and ear;y-50’s). Elvis and the rest were also sneaking across town in Memphis to hear the Jump Blues bands plating in the "Colored" Juke Joints.

That late-60’s search led back to Hillbilly music, the name originally given to Country & Western. Hillbilly came in a couple of different flavors, the most potent being Bluegrass. Elvis original releases---five Sun Records singles (released on both 7" 45 RPM and 10" 78’s)---contain a Hillbilly song on one side, and a Jump Blues on the other. He is often accused of "stealing" the music from the Negroes, but a comparison of his version of "Hound Dog" to the original by Big mama Thornton quickly dispels that myth. Elvis transformed both Hillbilly and Jump Blues into the original Rock ’n’ Roll: Rockabilly.

Every decade since the late-60’s (when the Counterculture generation started listening to and playing Country music) has produced it’s own group of Country artists, both "good" and "bad". Of course good and bad are a matter of opinion, and taste.

@mcstin: Carlene is quite a gal. She was married to Nick Lowe for a while, then Tom Petty’s bass player Howie Epstein. Lowe wrote a song called "Homewrecker", and I’ve long wondered if it was she to whom he was referring.

Carlene was brought on stage at some big Nashville awards ceremony, and her greeting to the audience---which included her ma June Carter and her step-pa Johnny Cash---was "Howdy, I’m Carlene Carter, and I put the c*unt back in Country."