When Ringo Starr recently announced that he was releasing a country album, some rolled their eyes. But it happens to be Ringo’s relationship with country goes much deeper than some might expect.
It’s often the songwriters and side players who never get their fair share of credit for their contributions to music. But if there was one side player who most every country music knew during his era, it was Don Rich.
The Country Music world has lost an incredibly important and pioneering drummer. On August 28th, Roland “Arnie” Adams passed away at home, reportedly from a late-stage cancer.
In the founding era of country rock, guitarist Tom Leadon was right there witnessing and participating in some of the most important moments and projects. He just happened to be overshadowed in many respects by the bigger names that country rock would launch.
60s and 70’s country music singer Dick Curless with his eye patch and authentic barrel-chested voice has always been a fascinating, yet shadowy character in the history of country music. He is known mostly as one of the overlords of the truck-driving country genre.
Don’t overlook the West Coast and California when you go looking for good country music. Case in point is Laura Benitez and the Heartache, who’ve been playing kick ass traditional country for years outside of the purview of country’s mother brain back in Nashville, and may have just released their career effort.
Country music is country music, and the best definition of what country music is, is that you know it when you hear it. It’s self-evident. But the genre has birthed many subgenres, many stylistic movements over the years, and at times has seen a splintering and Balkanization.
Dolly Parton will be one of the next inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The next question is how the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will consider country performers for induction moving forward. This moment presents a slippery slope.
Country music as a genre is unique in how it has its own dedicated award show organizations, and two of them as a matter of fact, and both of which that have been around for well over 50 years. But neither of them is the CMT Awards.
It was 1913, and ethnic Jews living in the Ukraine region of the Russian Empire were regularly subjected to brutal, mob-like massacres, known as pogroms. Just two years after a young boy named Nuta Kotlyarenko (Нута Котляренко) was born in Kiev on December 15th, 1902.
Merle Haggard was one of country music’s most famous former convicts, though most of his crimes were petty. The reason he landed in the notorious San Quentin Prison was due to how many times he escaped from smaller facilities and local jails. But did he really escape 17 times?
Those who really know their country music stuff, they know to keep one eye on country releases from the Scandinavian market, which has been a treasure trove of surprisingly great country music over the last few years. Norway’s Dag Erik Oksvold is as good of an example of this.
There is only one artist in this history of country music whose singing is so revered, he’s referred to simply as “The Voice.” But the career of Vern Gosdin also may contain one of the most sinister secrets in the history of country music. Did Vern Gosdin really contract two men to murder?
Even at 64-years-old now, Dwight is still squeezing into tight jeans, and moving around on stage like he’s 17, swinging hips, thrusting his haunches behind his guitar, and spinning around on his boot heels. Dwight Yoakam doesn’t play music, he makes sweet love to it, and his voice is still caramel.
Though it may be daunting to navigate with so many releases, Saving Country Music is here for you, and with so many releases, 2020 is also the first year you can compile a full-fledged Christmas playlist entirely of newly-released songs from the country world.
Call him the Founder, call him the Father, but whatever you call him, make sure you recognize that without Fuzzy Owen, there may have never been a “Bakersfield Sound” in country music, and country may have never taken such a foothold on the West Coast.
But Dolly Parton doesn’t deserve to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, at least not at the moment when there are so many other women and men waiting in the wings that are much more deserving, and could use the distinction to preserve a legacy that Dolly Parton already has secured for herself by many fold.
The fifth installment of the Ken Burns country music documentary zeroed in on the time period between 1964 and 1968, when the United States at large began to be embroiled in tumultuous times, and two separate epicenters in country music began to emerge. Arguably the most egalitarian of the episodes so far, it covered a lot of performers.
The name of the tour is definitely a little dubious for the venues Garth has selected to play so far. But those complaining about Garth’s efforts here are missing the bigger picture. “I think he recognizes the significant role that smaller venues play in keeping country music going.”
While Nashville country was awash in strings and suffering under the oppressive thumb of producers such as Chet Atkins and Billy Sherrill, the dim lights, thick smoke, and loud loud music of The Bakersfield Sound was keeping boots shuffling and country twangy. Unheard Merle Haggard tracks and other rarities are included in new box set.
On October 23, 1988, Austin City Limits went Bakersfield for one legendary night when an upcoming hot shot California country throwback traditionalist with jellyspine hips named Dwight Yoakam took the stage, and so did the man that he saw as his primary influence, the legendary Buck Owens.
For 40 years, Don Markham was the horn player in Merle Haggard’s backing band, The Strangers. In fact he outlasted every other permanent member in the band, and aside from a few hiatuses throughout the years, was the only constant member. He also played on every single Merle Haggard release since 1974, though you may have not noticed him.
Hee-Haw—the Roy Clark and Buck Owens-hosted show that ran for 30 years could soon be coming back to the airwaves with a brand new cast and fresh episodes. But don’t get your hopes up too high because it isn’t a done deal just yet.
It was bound to happen at some point. It’s almost strange it took so long. Two guys who have long called Austin, TX their main haunt, and who have made careers out of steadfastly sticking to their guns in their particular styles of country music, be damned of the financial ramifications, what fleeting trends come and go, or what Nashville thinks of it all, joining forces on a duets record.