Dear All,
The Country genre has been pretty badly maimed; it’s been dominated by pop artists for far too long. Although not all country music is bad, I would say the majority of it is. 
There have been a few bright stars: Jonny Cash, Steve Earle (played a song with the Pogues once!), Uncle Tupelo, and Chris Ledoux (to name a few of the few). Many bands that may be labeled as “Country” go for “alt country” or “American” or “Bluegrass.” But I haven’t yet seen a band label themselves as pure country and not sound like plastic shit – until I heard Ryan Bingham.
This guy is for real totally legit. He’s had a tough life. He’s got a deep whiskey cigarette voice that tells stories. He labels himself as Country music. His music is moving, energetic, charged by the Texas landscape from which he hails. I thoroughly enjoy listening to him.
Go to his website and play some of his music. Listen to this song from the Dave Letterman show. He wrote the theme to the movie Crazy Heart (staring Jeff Bridges).
Um. Garth Brooks? George Strait? Brooks and Dunn? Or are they too mainstream?
Peter, I can see us dying. Are we?
I feel like it may be the case. BUT, that's only because there have not been any recent posts, any poetry, any love, any thing but me posting the occasional funny video, the occasional polemic article, and the occasional exhortation to listen to the music I think is good.
I want this to be an open forum. It's not that hard to post on here. Anything that you find interesting will suffice.
I know that we all lead very busy lives, but let's do our best to keep up here.
By the way, Mike, Garth Brooks, George Straight, Brooks and Dunn.
Really?
Really?
Peter-man, all about the visuals. If you didn't put up pictures of mainstream country artists, I would have certainly been pining for one and probably google-imaged my way through endless album cover photos, but thankfully you provided.
Are you an art teacher or something?
The lack of open-forumness lately is perhaps due to (what we'll now refer to as) "the seminarian". Just sayin.
I received this from said person, who we shall hithertofromforth refer to as "the seminarian."
There is a whole genre of good country music that one might label "Texas Country." It is distinct from "Nashville Country," which is "plastic shit," and from country of the deep south, which is more like bluegrass. I found an excellent radio station out of Ft. Worth awhile back; it plays only Texas country. As they advertise, "In Texas, we put 'Ranch' on everything, even radio stations. 95.9 The Ranch. Texas Yall!" Consider following the likes of Monte Montegomery (who is from the Fbg area) or Ray Wylie Hubbard (who is one crazy sonuvabitch). That radio station, though, tends to have a wide variety of music that you would traditionally include as country are not likely to find on CMT or some billboard chart. Anyways, you might like to pop onto their website and give it a listen here and there. https://www.959theranch.com/
Pax Christi,
-The Seminarian-
And bee tee dubbs Hughes,
Am I detecting a hint of snark?
You been sippin' that snarky cool-aid up there in NYC? It's the new hipster lingo, the only funny thing is irony anymore, like a tatoo'd pierced man wearing a chastity and abstinence t-shirt to a coffee bar.
I hate you.
I liked the original comment made by the seminarian; I too grew up enjoying "Texas Country." My dad had Jerry Jeff Walker's old LP, Viva Terlinga; I thought that stuff was great. I guess that's just another entry I've got to add to my eccentric list of experience