Comments on: My Start in Country Music

By: Craig.R

Craig.R — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:27:57 +0000

Thank you for all your kind remarks- I have been home with the flu for the past few days and this my first chance to read my post online. Thank you again for the chance to speak my mind. And thanks to Razor X. That is the station – and you are right that bluegrass was raw and real.

By: Dan Milliken

Dan Milliken — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:05:03 +0000

Fantastic piece, Craig. I wish I could articulate why country music speaks to me personally as beautifully as you have here.

By: Paul Dennis

Paul Dennis — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:15:59 +0000

Nice article. I was always into Country Music but from 1960 to 1965 I lived in an area without a full-time country music station . In 1966 we moved back to the Norfolk,VA area where WCMS AM-1050 (“Where Country Music Swings”) and WTID (“Top Gun Country”) both broadcast country music 24 hours daily.

I keep hoping for the next Randy Travis to appear but thus far, such a person has yet to emerge

By: Leeann Ward

Leeann Ward — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:22:16 +0000

Just wanted to say publicly (though you already know from our email communications) that I loved this piece. It was a fascinating read, indeed. Thanks for sharing it with us.

By: J.R. Journey

J.R. Journey — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:53:20 +0000

I’m with CMW – this was an excellent read. And I totally agree about the current crop of new singers. None of them seem to have any love (or even knowledge) for the traditions – and don’t even know the history of what came before them. I bet if you asked Kenny Chesney, Billy Currington, Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift (or any number of artists who’ve had a #1 hit in the past year) about Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, you’d get nothing but puzzled looks.

it’s actually kind of frightening to think about. Country music has almost become a parody of itself. And when an art form becomes a parody of itself, that art form is all but dead already.

By: Mike K

Mike K — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:45:28 +0000

Really niece piece Craig. Thank you for sharing your story.

By: Erik North

Erik North — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:49:00 +0000

For me, country music, growing up here in Southern California, was one of many things to hear on the radio in the late 70s. This was before the days of media outlets (radio; TV; newspapers) being bought out by big, faceless corporations. We had two major C&W stations here in Los Angeles during this period: KLAC on the AM dial, and KZLA on the FM. Each of them played a really wide variety of country, from the 1950s to the Nashville Sound of the early 1960s, and then the Outlaw and California country-rock movements of the contemporary period, though by and large, until it went first to an all-pop-standards format in 1996, and then all-sports a couple of years later, KLAC retained its diversity of country, while KZLA became pretty much exclusively a haven for the artists of the post-Garth era.

Personally, I really appreciate the older veterans like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Merle Haggard when it comes to the men of the country genre. They each sort of defined what jazz legend Miles Davis said he himself liked about country music–”the stories, man, the stories.” The same goes for the womenfolk too, though, because of the classic country-rock of both Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, I really prefer a more left-of-center approach that is embodied in folks like Rosanne Cash, Lucinda Williams, Allison Moorer, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Trisha Yearwood (in the mainstream), and, more recently, Tift Merritt.

I would hope at some point the fine art of storytelling will once again trump the arena-rock-with-twang theatrics that most modern country has become. It can’t be all about girls who think a guy’s tractor’s sexy, or honky-tonk badonkadonks (whatever the h**l that is), or any of that nonsense. It has to get back to the stories and themes that made it what it is to begin with, and not cater to the lowest common denominator (IMO).

By: Razor X

Razor X — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:38:36 +0000

I know that country station at the Delaware shore — WDSD-FM, right? They used to play some real hardcore bluegrass at night!

By: CMW

CMW — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:36:06 +0000

This was a great read. Thanks for sharing, Craig.

By: Occasional Hope

Occasional Hope — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:12:41 +0000

Excellent piece – thank you for sharing your story. I have to agree with your points about the current state of country.