Gonna Cut You Down "Johnny Cash"

[fightingquaker13]

What the heck ever happened to that good ole country music?

It moved to Austin.
FQ13

[seeker_two]

It moved to Austin.
FQ13

It never made it there....Austin "country music" is just as bad as the dreck coming out of Nashville....thank God for XM and The Roadhouse..... 

[Pathfinder]

Back in the mid eighties I walked into a bar in the French Quarter during the weeks of pre Mardi Gras...and there in a bar the size of my living room sat B.B. King and Lucille.  He was just palying and having a good time.
I also had the pleasure of hearing Merle Haggard play back when I was around 5 or so.  That would put it around 1970....He was at a small town fair in Arkansas. 
And lastly...I have a distant cousin who is somewhat famous for playing songs about Santa Claus as well as holding tigers by the tail etc.... He use to show up at our family reunion occasionally here in S.W. Missouri and was known for his Picken and Grinning.

You ever hear tell of a little blond country singer, last name of Fitzgerald, from Joplin? I went to school with her son - for a year - and he told of having Buck, Roy, Porter and others over to the house for supper.

And if you're hankering for old time country, try some of the Western stars, like Ian Tyson. They're more real, less tinsel and spangles than the old time Country folk, but damn, they are good. Brenn Hill, Don Edwards, Joni Harms, Tish Hinajosa, et al. Very little of the Austin/Nashville/corporate crap either.

[rat31465]

It moved to Austin.
FQ13

There are a good smathering of them in Branson Mo too.

[MikeBjerum]

What the heck ever happened to that good ole country music?

It became popular, they forgot what got 'em there, and now it is more about the numbers than "dancing with the one that brought you."

Why is it that the ones I like the most come and go, or if they stay they become homogenized like all the rest?  The "Outlaws" like Hank Jr., Merle, Johnny, Kris, ... say/said it like it is, and we won't let them go away.  There are a few new comers that are fighting, but they fluctuate between who they are and main stream, some like Garth and a babe who ran off to Switzerland on her "country" money sold out after good starts, and most of the new ones don't need to "cross over" because they have sucked country and southern rock so far from its roots it is unrecognizable.

I miss the comfort of true Western, the ballads of Country, and the down home party of Southern Rock.  All three were/are real and true to the singer, and in the words of Trace "Songs About Me."

[Sponsor]

[jaybet]

I'm not really a "country guy" but I really appreciate honest country and also honest western music. Most music is honest unless it is driven by the kingmakers, then it is usually a version of a formula likely to produce a profit...plain and simple.

I'm no professor, but my theory is that after the hay day of rock, styles like grunge and alternative rock just didn't step up to the plate. That, combined with the wholesale bullying of the entire american culture by the hip hop/rap, MTV machine left a really big void in popular music. Modern country, as fake as it is, filled that gap and it's basically the new "rock" music. Non-country types can tolerate it because it rocks, country folk tolerate it because it's better than nothing, and it ain't rap.

The fact is, these big country stars have talent, but Tim Mcgraw, Toby Keith, those type of mega stars are a commodity, like any other commodity. God bless them, they've gotten rich on what they're doing, but, to quote Walt Welch (a life long, not famous, not rich, country bar guitar player) "It ain't country".

I don't have a country voice, but I've been working on it in my single acoustic act. I've always done a wide variety of music so I so some country and folk. "You are my sunshine" is actually a sad, beautiful song. I've got a couple of Bob Wills songs, Merle, Johnny Cash, but my audience is not country so I can't overdo it. The thing is, that music is honest and clean and it was meant to express a thought or an emotion, not to make a million dollars. I guess that's the difference.

I think you'll have a hard time finding real country in arenas. You're going to have to ask around and find out if anyone knows of any good local country musicians, then go patronize the roadhouses, restaurants, and dives that pay them lousy money to bare their souls night after night. That's where the real music went.