Country & Western

[Iving]

Great topic and thread

 

The OP encourages a broad approach!

And doesn't prohibit multiple suggestions in one post.

Apologies for any liberties.

Hopefully you'll understand.

 

As a Brit I feel something of an interloper on Country & Western.

In the mid-1970s as a 13/14 year old at a boarding school,

I used to lock myself away to listen to seminal Rockabilly,

when all my peers, if they liked music at all, barely thought beyond the charts.

(OK maybe a couple of nerds were into Prog Rock.)

A few years older, I used to sneak out

(it was like escaping from and gaining re-entry to Colditz)

to see some of the old guard still doing the rounds -

Carl Perkins, Bo Diddley and the like.

I've always had a guitar or two.

I'm an online dealer in records and CDs with a good reputation.

More than all of these combined

I have an authentic appreciation of music including Country.

How do I know?

Goosebumps.

That's how.

 

My "take home message" about Country is that it's the most hardcore music there is.

I mean we've all been to the candy store or lost a sweetheart.

Country music is often stereotyped as twee or trite.

But its narratives are oh so real when -

what you never thought would happen to you -

well -

happens to you.

 

It's like ...

you just cannot understand "Sunday Morning Coming Down"

unless you've been there -

in the darkness.

You have to have the T-shirt to get the full dose of emotional identification.

You know you're lucky to be alive at all.

Only you and other survivors understand.

 

On of my sons died last year - of his own addictions - just before his 29th birthday.

 

I'll stick to the Country music aspect of the story.

 

I won't say that certain music got me through the last 18 months or so

(the whole thing got stupidly protracted and toxified by the incredibly blunt and irrelevant Inquest)

but some songs and their lyrics became so incredibly sympathetic

that now they sit in my mind as Darling Companions.

 

The first I'll mention is Iris Dement's "The Night I Learned How Not To Pray".

Please - you don't have to understand religion or faith to understand the song.

None of us chooses who lives or dies -

not even parents in the matter of their own children.

Iris writes as the sibling of the deceased.

But you can imagine the parents' horror as the little brother is taken from the scene in the car.

And you get the notion that adjustment is a process that takes decades -

assuming you survive it yourself -

and assuming it ever ends at all.

It's a most subjective thing - losing a child.

Only someone with an overlapping experience could understand -

or so it seems -

and how it seems is how it lands and counts.

 

 

The second is Waylon, Willie, Kris and Johnny with "Born And Raised In Black And White".

My lost son and his successful, independent, slightly older brother were like chalk and cheese.

None of us can design the personalities of our children.

Who would want to.

Doesn't make it any the less curious how we all turn out.

Or render any of us less lovable.

 

 

So Country music can be a friend.

Just lets you be with something.

Channels the emotion.

Is impartial.

Has wisdom.

 

Unlike the small brigade of deadbeat sociopath-crusaders here who assume a moral right to make you feel like you've got a dirty secret if you like a system tweak that sounds better to your own ears ... Explain yourself!

 

 

I'm not afraid of truth - my own truth - my own subjective truth.

Country music - like no other kind - can remind me that it's all I have.

 

That's me done. Thanks for listening.

[Iving]

shout-out to Paulette Carlson

 

 

[Iving]

Ernest Tubb "Nothing On My Mind"

easy to overlook

possibly not issued until vinyl in 1960s on WORLD R-720 with Chapel Quartet

anybody have any info especially recording date ty

 

 

[Iving]

The other day I was delighted to come across a very scratched MGM single amongst a mountain of others ... just about played OK ... ... ordered the CD "very best of MGM recordings" which arrived this morning ... life is made of the little things ... I'm a happy bunny ...

 

 

[Iving]

 

[Iving]

Is Dwight Yoakam wasted on Country music?

 

 

OK I'll explain. No disrespect on Country. I love it. Previous post(s) of mine in this thread confirm. What I mean is ... arguably ... the nuance, emotion and control in his voice on this exquisite track is beyond the genre ... he has the talent of a major tenor such as ...