Lee Ann Womack: “What They Call Country Now is Obviously Not Country”
Over the last few years, Lee Ann Womack has been one of the biggest firebrands and proponents for true country music out there, taking any opportunity presented to her to speak out about what’s happening to the genre, and how she feels about the country music of today. The topic came up yet again in a recent discussion with interviewer Evan Smith on his PBS program Overheard, which originates on the affiliate KLRU in Austin.
When coaxed by Evan Smith to discuss what Womack thinks about today’s country music, she responded, “What they call country music now, mass marketed as country music is obviously not country music. I don’t know what it is … It’s sort of a pop music I guess … Country music to me is the greatest. It’s American music. It’s beautiful when it’s done well and done right.”
Lee Ann Womack also discussed how the change from the major label system to now more independent labels (her last record was released on ATO) has opened up the music, and about the challenges she faced in the latter half of her major label career as a traditional country artist.
“It’s opening up. It’s kind of like the Wild West,” she said. “It allows people to make music that maybe would have never gotten on a major label. You can buck the system and still have great success. I was always cutting mostly really traditional hardcore country music with a lot of fiddles and steel guitars and stuff. And they just weren’t playing that anymore.”
Evan Smith also asked about the challenges Lee Ann faced as a mother throughout her career. Her daughter Aubrey Sellers is also a performer. “This is a burden men in the music business do not have to ever endure, do they?” Evan Smith asked. “It’s never the same. Typically if you’re a man and you have a kid, somebody’s got that kid taken care of.”
“I’ve always said, ‘I need a wife,'” Lee Ann responded. “And it takes a village, and a lot of people. Nannies, assistance, a good husband, and all that. So we all work together.”
When asked what Lee Ann Womack wants to accomplish during the rest of her career she responded, “I just want to sing, and I just want to sing mostly country music. I would like to remind people what country music is. Because what is marketed as country is not.”
You can watch the entire interview below.
June 14, 2018 @ 8:22 am
I’d marry that woman at the drop of a hat
June 14, 2018 @ 8:42 am
She’s pretty steamy. Probably a freak under the sheets.
June 14, 2018 @ 1:49 pm
You just had to make it weird, Pete.
June 15, 2018 @ 7:06 am
get in line , my friend ….get in line
June 18, 2018 @ 10:41 pm
I got as far as her being coaxed. At that point I realized neither the author or the editor gave a darn. So why should I?
June 14, 2018 @ 8:24 am
As long as she keeps singing them, I’ll keep listening.
June 14, 2018 @ 8:32 am
Louder for the people in the back!
June 14, 2018 @ 8:37 am
Bro/pop “country” is more by the day the elephant in the room for the ringleaders that feed it. The only question is, how can we shut the circus down faster?
June 14, 2018 @ 6:37 pm
“How can we shut the circus down faster?”
Well, we could light it on fire, and hope the Indian Cowboy doesn’t show up to put it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJUeiRTeUpY
June 14, 2018 @ 7:04 pm
Not sure he would try to save the house of horrors that is bro/pop ”country.”
June 14, 2018 @ 9:21 am
Let me preface this by saying Lee Ann Womack is one of my favorite artists and by far my favorite female Country singer.
That being said, I’m not sure her comments with resonate with anyone inside of Music Row anymore than they did with numerous other “Traditional” Country artists have said them over the last 5 or so years. Comments like these are great, but they only really reach the audience that has already turned away from modern Country music. This is sort of like Trump or Sanders comments regarding the economy or immigration being cheered by the attendees of their rallies. Sure, it fuels the base of anti-mainstream Country radio, but its hard to tell if it has any real support outside of that.
That’s not to say the Lee Ann shouldn’t voice her opinion or anything, I guess what I am trying to say is that we should all probably remember that until an artist who is at the top of the radio/streaming charts (see Aldean, Bryan, etc.) says something like this, I don’t think it will have much impact sadly.
June 14, 2018 @ 11:12 am
It won’t have an impact until a new format emerge. Most true country music fan are denied radio access because no radio is playing their music. Where’s diversity when we live in a monogenre world?!…
If a true country radio emerge, the fake country radio will loose a lot of listeners but both world will be happy.
June 14, 2018 @ 9:34 am
I saw this written in a comments section on here from April 2010:
“Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban etc that you named, are not country either. It’s all the same “happy happy”, “yippy skippy” garbage.”
LOL
June 14, 2018 @ 4:09 pm
Love that description!
“Happy happy, yippy skippy garbage”. So aptly describes the mainstream, radio-styled country of today.
Can I use that?
June 14, 2018 @ 7:14 pm
Chesney and Urban write more songs about drinking on beaches than doing farm work. Perfect description of them right there.
June 14, 2018 @ 11:07 pm
I’m not sure Chesney and Urban have ever stepped foot on a farm, much less worked at one.
June 14, 2018 @ 10:53 am
http://tasteofcountry.com/sam-hunt-new-country-music-interview-2018/
June 14, 2018 @ 11:54 am
Wow, never expected to see him mention Tyler Childers in an interview.
June 14, 2018 @ 4:15 pm
Sam Hunt – SCM’s 2020 artist of the year! That was an interesting read.
June 14, 2018 @ 11:16 am
But “more” is questionable. Moving from 0.01% country to 1% country is improvement rate equal to 10000%!
June 14, 2018 @ 12:37 pm
I have to agree. The country music performers today deffinetly are not country. Hank Williams, Jr., Alan Jackson, Toby Keith now they are country along with Reba, Martina Mcbride. But I can tell you for damn sure performers today claiming to be country are no way in hell are country because the majority of them look and sound like punk rockers.
June 14, 2018 @ 1:29 pm
Kudos to Lee ann
June 14, 2018 @ 3:00 pm
I enjoy having those independent artists in my rotation at Bus of Real Country.
June 14, 2018 @ 3:02 pm
It’s a crying shame what WE/as
TRUE TRADITIONAL COUNTRY MUSIC FANS
are subject to having to listen to today!!! SHAMEFUL!!!!! NEED OUR COUNTRY BACK
June 14, 2018 @ 4:10 pm
I love some Lee Ann! She is an excellent live performer. Her band plays fiddle, steel, dobro, mandolin, and some standup bass. And If That Ain’t Country…
June 14, 2018 @ 4:20 pm
Here is one place that plays a lot,if not all real country:
http://www.radiofreecountry.com
Them,along with WSM of course.
June 14, 2018 @ 4:52 pm
Had no idea Aubrey was LeeAnn’s daughter. She definitely got her mom’s talent and great taste in music.
June 14, 2018 @ 7:45 pm
She was married to Jason sellars previously. They’re all still pretty cordial and work together. That’s where the last name for aubrie comes from.
June 14, 2018 @ 5:48 pm
I think probably the biggest manipulation going on the music industry right now is how music curation apps such as Spotify label artists like Womack and others similar to her as “Americana” rather than country. “Americana” in and of itself is kind of its own thing, yet the mainstream music media seems to think that bluegrass, folk, and traditional country should fit under that umbrella too.
June 14, 2018 @ 6:17 pm
She doesn’t even have a beard.
June 14, 2018 @ 7:36 pm
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again–this whole pop-versus-country thing has been around in one form or another since the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, when Elvis, who might have gone the straight country route (as might Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others of that era) had he not also been hugely influenced by black Gospel and R&B, turned all American popular music on its ear. This is nothing new. Only the names, the faces, and the situations change.
What I think IS new, and dangerous to the country genre’s integrity, is that hardly anybody that gets played on country radio now is influenced by either straight-ahead country artists from the last seventy years, or those rock and roll acts from the 1960s and 1970s who have a background in and/or a substantial knowledge of country music and its history. Too much of it is overcooked Southern rock, 80s arena rock, hip-hop, or boy-band crap with maybe just a touch of drawl or twang (not that you’d be able to hear the drawl or twang over the loud production on a lot of those records).
Lee Ann’s concerns about country music, coming from her more traditional perspective, are legitimate. The genre is in severe danger from acts trying to draw in audiences from other genres who probably wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about country music whatsoever. Should country music “evolve? Yes, and it historically HAS, but it has done so WITHOUT leaving its traditional spirit and history in the dust. You can have a genre that continues with tradition and brings that tradition forward. But I wouldn’t call being influenced by arena rock, hip hop, and boy bands a case of country music “evolving”. As a rock music fan who also appreciates legitimate country music, I call it Sick.
June 14, 2018 @ 7:56 pm
I listen to Nash.FM in New York and everyday they play the same songs (country pop) about 10 times in an 8 hour time span (I listen at work). Does Carrie Underwood own the station because they play her songs constantly! I feel like I’m listening to the Top 20 countdown over and over again – all freaking day! I
June 14, 2018 @ 9:03 pm
Everyday?
June 14, 2018 @ 9:04 pm
I meant to add… Are you a masochist?
June 15, 2018 @ 3:57 am
If you’re listening at work, why don’t you just choose one of the many online country radio stations that don’t do this? They’re all free to listen to!
June 15, 2018 @ 8:14 pm
Yes! Try 95.9theranch.com in Fort Worth, Texas. You’ll love it.
June 14, 2018 @ 10:37 pm
But is it good that some people who first fell in love with country pop are now becoming fans of traditional country music? ‘Cause I am. I was introduced to country music by (the old and supposedly “dead”) Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban, Hunter Hayes, Kelsea Ballerini, Rascal Flatts, etc. but now I’m beginning to love the music of neotraditional artists like Trixie Mattel, Jon Pardi, Midland, the pre-Golden Hour Kacey Musgraves, Shotgun Riders and others. I know I’m still kind of mainstream with my taste but don’t judge me, I’m kinda new with this genre but I wanna discover more country music, may it be mainstream or traditional or fusion/subgenre 🙂
June 14, 2018 @ 11:47 pm
Another great comment from here in Sept. 2009…LOL at the last sentence:
“There was a time when most country artists came from the farm or the hills or the cotton patch. They wrote about what they knew, and as a result the music was sincere and real, not always pretty, but real. Hard and grizzled troubadours such as Willie Nelson,Kris Kristofferson, Faron Young and Roger Miller drank hard at lower Broadway dives in Nashville and traded war stories and song ideas. What was born from that great era were the most amazing classical country songs ever written, and that never will be again.
Today we have children like Taylor Swift who has never had a pretty hair out of place writing songs about her boyfriend troubles on her pink satin sheets in her bedroom.”
June 15, 2018 @ 4:12 am
Want to hear a young man doing it right? Do yourself a favor and check out Mo Pitney. The voice, the musicianship and the songwriting all in one package. Seen him open for Merle Haggard back in 2015. Just him and his Martin guitar. Blew me away. Btw Lee Ann still has a b
June 15, 2018 @ 4:57 am
This new country music is not country. ……. true country. Is hank 1/2/3. Mearl haggard. George jones Jonny cash and so on that is pure county not like Bryan George line boys. And so on. That’s not country
June 15, 2018 @ 7:18 am
”Today we have children like Taylor Swift who has never had a pretty hair out of place writing songs about her boyfriend troubles on her pink satin sheets in her bedroom.”
Shania ….Taylor Swift ……same mission, different demographic, same results ……POP music trying , poorly , to disguise itself as country music and finding a demographic that didn’t care whether it was or wasn’t . Stunning , really , the impact both of those ‘ artists’ had on the genre by targeting ignorant young listeners . All business ….all $$$$
June 15, 2018 @ 9:32 am
Atleast Swift is making songs out of her own experiences and doesnt ever rely on multiple songwriters *cough* bro country dudes and other pop stars *cough*
June 15, 2018 @ 9:28 am
Lee Ann’s running out of Fxcks to Give and it’s glorious.
June 15, 2018 @ 10:26 am
Her comments are accurate – but then “I Hope You Dance” and many of her other hits didn’t exactly sound like any Loretta Lynn or Kitty Wells songs. Seems a bit hypocritical for somebody who puts a degree of pop in her music to complain about people who put even more pop in theirs. A lot of the 1990s/2000’s acts who are complaining I suspect are more p.o.’d about being too old for today’s market rather than the actual type of music being made now.
June 15, 2018 @ 10:35 am
Le Ann has addressed that specific issue in the past as well. Listen to her records before and after “I Hope You Dance.” Stone cold country music.
June 15, 2018 @ 12:48 pm
“Never Again, Again” is a good one she sang the heck out of.
June 15, 2018 @ 9:22 pm
She tried to take it further than “I Hope You Dance” with the terrible “Something Worth Leaving Behind.” That song failed and I think she realized the POP train was over for her. I think it was more pressure from the label than her own tastes but she did dip her toes into the POP world and out of country. Still, she is a badass, a true master of country music and 100 times better than Kacey Musgraves or Margo Price. Those little girls are just wannabes compared to the GREAT LEANN WOMACK. They can’t even sing compared to her.
June 15, 2018 @ 11:03 am
I went to the Grand Ole Opry once,and Leann was there.She did a bluegrass version of I hope you dance.It was very acoustic.
June 15, 2018 @ 11:43 am
“….it takes a village….” – Dang, was Lee Ann channeling her inner Hillary Clinton?
June 15, 2018 @ 2:00 pm
Love, love, love her. She pretty much said the same thing at AmericanaFest last year.
June 16, 2018 @ 2:46 pm
Lee Ann had the best set at last week’s CMA Fest. It was fascinating because every act tried to fit in as many radio singles and pop cover songs in their 30 minute sets, but Lee Ann did the opposite. With the exception of “The Way I Am Living” she opted to play no singles which allowed for several songs offg her excellent “The Lonely, The Lonesome, and The Gone.” While Dustin Lynch was covering Drake, Dan + Shay performing a Justin Timberlake song, Lee Ann treated the crowd to a perfect rendition of a George Jones song. She’s the queen!
June 17, 2018 @ 3:16 pm
I remember when Leann Womack first started they said, ” she’s too country for country radio.” I thought to myself firstly…..I need to get that cd/album. And it was AWESOME!!!!!! And secondly….the radio people were TOTALLY INSANE!!!!!!! I also spoke to two deejays from a radio station here in Connecticut (92.5)….and they said the demographic doesn’t like the more traditional sounding country music. So I asked what the demographic was. They said 19 to 30. I said there’s your problem right there. It is also about the money angle which is wrong again. I mean how can you kill a whole genre of music off?!?!?!?!? I just coudn’t understand it. You have people from rock, rap and other fomats……converting to country (or what they call country)……just cause they aren’t selling enough units anymore…..and the country community just welcomes them in. It shouldn’t be……but it’s being done alot more often now. I look at the country charts now…..and I hardly know any of the artists anymore….and that’s sad. I wish there would be a major change…..but again….I highly doubt that will happen. The current scene of country music is following the money train….and that sad. Hopefully we traditionalists can keep real country music alive.
June 17, 2018 @ 5:35 pm
Many radio people are STILL in sane, if not all radio people.
June 19, 2018 @ 8:10 am
Best Country album in the last 20 years was Metamodern Sounds in Country Music by Sturgill Simpson and it was roundly ignored by most pure Country fans. Everytime I ran into someone who liked him it was a Hipster or someone completely removed from the genre in general. Admittedly Sturgill is retro in many respects but who cares because the songs are good. I don’t want everything frozen in time at 1975 but man, today’s Country acts are just terrible.
March 4, 2022 @ 1:16 pm
Well,yeah,Lee Ann,it’s been headed in that direction since Chris Gaines (excuse me,Garth Brooks) cribbed part of his act from Kiss’. Hugely talented folk such as Johnny Cash,Faron Young,Patsy Cline,the aptly named Merle Haggard,Willie Nelson and other great but not exactly telegenic acts would be passes over for less-talented pin-up cowboys and cowgirls.